Dougherty (2010)

Dougherty, W. C. (2010). Managing technology: E-readers: Passing fad or trend of the future?. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 36(3), 254-256. Retrieved October 22, 2011, from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text.

Dougherty begins with a useful survey of the e-readers available at the time of his writing, paying particular attention to interface issues like e-ink and backlighting. He provides a nice description of EPUB:

"... created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). This open e-book standard allows publishers to produce and send a single digital publication file through distribution and offers consumers interoperability between software / hardware for unencrypted reflowable digital books and other publications. This means the display can be optimized for each device's particular strong point. The standard was released in September 2007 ..." (p. 254).

Dougherty then surveys some cases of libraries exploring the use of e-books, including:

• The Cushing High School library's announcement that it will replace its 20,000-book collection with e-resources.
• An idea by David Rothman to organize a national digital library that would help public and school libraries provide e-resources.

Turning to university library experiences, Dougherty sees North Carolina State University as a place on the cutting edge. In a summary of a forum in which some of its personnel participated, Dougherty noted that:

• At that point librarians seem to prefer the Kindle to the Sony device because the former did not require a computer interface to download an e-book.
• In the near term readers will want both print and e-book options.
• That librarians are more than willing to confront the changes on the horizon.
• The issue of incompatibility in device formats needs to be addressed.
• The issue of the devices' limitations in the display of graphics and illustrations must be overcome.
• EPUB needs to address bookmarking and annotation capabilities.
• There will be issues around availability of titles not old enough to be out of copyright but not popular enough to have much of a market.

Dougherty raises the issues of virus attacks on e-readers, which I have not seen elsewhere. Apparently they were not happening when he wrote this article, but he put it on the radar.

My thoughts
Quoting John Dix ("From the Editor" Network World. (v. 27, no. 1), p. 5), Dougherty says, "The futurre will demand that computing be oriented toward services that can be accessed 'by any
device, any time, anywhere'" (p. 255). The provoked me to think about what our library will look like and what the librarian's job will be when the SFPL is offering the books our students need in digital format. If students each had an e-reader, addressing their need for substantial independent reading would involve (1) the same kind of work teaching them how to use the online catalog to find books on topics of their interest that I do with them now; (2) making sure they all have SFPL cards; (3) teaching them how to download a book from the library. The first task -- teaching students how to use a database -- is still an important one. I might find it useful to create resource lists of books on topics students read (football fiction, urban fiction, etc.) so they are not sorting through the entire SFPL collection. 

Under these conditions, books for research projects would become just another item in their search for online resources, along with databases, Google searches, etc.

Having all the books online would shift my duties more toward the informational literacy skills, the second major concern of school librarians.

What are the chances every student would (1) have an e-reader and (2) prefer it to print? The Kindle I just bought costs about the same as one student textbook. If textbooks were available in digital format, the school district would jump at the chance to use them, and e-books for other purposes would slide into place right along with that movement. As for student preferences, I think they would adapt very quickly to the e-book format.

What would the library look like? We could keep all the books on the shelves, since they line to walls rather than clutter the interior space, for as long as we want to whether or note they are being used. They would be decoration instead of our reason for existence. We could fill the room with computers, but that would make it look like a computer lab, not a library. The image from the Cushing High School Web site is more inviting. They refer to their library as a cafe where students go to hang out, have coffee or something to eat, and sit at tables and on stuffed chairs and couches to use their e-readers. I like that image a lot. A big lounge, a bit like a hotel lobby, with lots of comfortable seating. And keep the books on the walls to remind them that this is a library, not a hotel lobby or a Starbucks. And also because, as one of Dougherty's sources notes, at this early point in the process (although I suspect the process is going to move very quickly very soon), students will want to choose between ebooks and print.