[J. Strnad]

I'm old enough to remember when the local libraries (school, neighborhood branch and the main downtown library) were touchstones of my life. They held the books I couldn't get elsewhere, and they were the only way I had to research anything. I learned to use the card catalog and the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature.

I wasn't sure why they felt it part of their mission to provide free VHS tapes of popular movies. Documentaries, educational videos of all kinds, "masterpiece" stuff...I could see. But I also thought, why should they censor and be the arbiters of taste? Some of the books I read were nothing but "entertainment" so why should it be any different for videos?

The modern library is far less about books than media, and providing internet access to those who don't have computers or broadband. They can provide much more information to their patrons by providing internet access than they can by maintaining a physical library. This strikes me as a useful investment of public money.

I can see why ebooks are an uncomfortable fit. Anyone who is logging on to a library site to download an ebook, has an ereader, a computer, and an internet connection. So why is it part of the library's mission to provide free ebooks to a fairly privileged class of people? Why is public tax money spent on this?

Now, I have to say that I have a Kobo and that I've checked out a number of library books, and I love being able to do that. But I can't honestly say that I feel entitled to this service as some kind of "right." In fact, it feels to me like a temporary pleasure, like a bubble, that is too fragile to last.

We're still struggling to come up with the business models that make sense for ebooks, and that includes figuring out how libraries fit into the scheme. I don't know if this "limited check-out" idea is going to work, if it'll be modified or abandoned altogether, but it does seem kind of old-fashioned and "in-the-boxy" when what we need is a new way of thinking about the whole situation.