Notice to publishers: curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal | Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-03-08

Summary:

“With yet another publisher announcing today that it’s dropping out of the library eBook market, I decided to put up a new sign in our library... list[ing] which publishers won’t do eBook business with libraries and provides contact information for the publishers in question... As a librarian and as a reader, I am tired of publishers walking away from the library table.  I have no problem with them walking away from a particular third party vendor, but only if they have a plan in place to offer up their own platform or be signed with an alternate vendor already. Gaps in service, gaps in availability of their titles to our patrons equals stupidity in my opinion.  Walking away from the library eBook market makes no financial long-term sense, nor does it continue the positive relationship that publishers and libraries have cultivated for centuries to help bring information and entertainment to people. I think it’s about damn time we, as library professionals, started getting the public riled up about this too.  We need legislation passed (or copyright law clarified) that states that indeed, libraries can license/purchase and lend out digital items just like they can with physical items.  Fragmentation and exclusionary business practices hurt the people we serve.  As a librarian I feel we must stand up, as a profession, and say ‘no more...’ This is one of those issues we’ve been dealing with in the library vacuum–an issue 99.9% of the public has no idea exists, and an issue that would invoke at least 80% pissed-off-ed-ness if we tell people about it...”

Link:

http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2012/02/ebooksign.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Librarianinblack+(LibrarianInBlack)

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.comment oa.legislation oa.copyright oa.libraries oa.books oa.librarians

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

03/08/2012, 11:04

Date published:

02/10/2012, 17:33