Libraries Can't Meet eBook Demand

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

No it's not, since you need to drive or take a bus to get there to begin with. Better that than to see hours and content acquisitions cut back because of budget crunches.

Libraries need to streamline and make more efficient uses of their dwindling budgets.

Walking distance is subjective. For years and years my family had no car and we lived in a town where public transportation was iffy. My local library was much more than 2 miles away and I considered it walking distance.

I could walk (nice day), take the bus (not so nice of a day) or if a friend also wanted to go we would get a ride with a parent.

Just because you cannot/will not walk more than 2 miles does not mean it isn't within walking distance.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

If I had to visit a library to check out ebooks, I'd quit using the library altogether.

Shorter wait times for others.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Walking distance is subjective. For years and years my family had no car and we lived in a town where public transportation was iffy. My local library was much more than 2 miles away and I considered it walking distance.

I could walk (nice day), take the bus (not so nice of a day) or if a friend also wanted to go we would get a ride with a parent.

Just because you cannot/will not walk more than 2 miles does not mean it isn't within walking distance.

I have to say, I somewhat disagree on the cannot walking part. If you happen to be paraplegic, nothing is quite within walking distance. *Budump tish*

Seriously, though, I'm the closest I've ever been to a library, and it is about two and a half or three miles away. Before that, I was about 10 miles from a library, but I couldn't use it since I didn't live within the city limits. Before that, it was about 5 miles to the library. I could walk to the one by me now, if I really wanted to, but probably wouldn't if driving wasn't an option.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Just because you cannot/will not walk more than 2 miles does not mean it isn't within walking distance.

Then all libraries are within walking distance. So if a branch 3 miles from your home is closed, just walk to the one that's 5 miles away.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Shorter wait times for others.

Not really, since I rarely check out popular titles. Most of the stuff I check out has no wait times.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

If you start closing down branches in favor of more online stuff, you more or less doing that. What good is having access, if you now have to go further and further to make use of it?

One problem is how far some have to go to get a library card. Most libraries make you have to go in person to get a library card. So even if you access electronic resources, you still have to make that one trek to the library to get the card.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

*envy*

I can do even better. I have a library branch .6 miles away from home.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Just because you cannot/will not walk more than 2 miles does not mean it isn't within walking distance.

I can walk two miles. My husband can't. For myself, I'd just have to decide if a library visit were worth the hour's round trip walk (and I have the energy for that) on weekend, because they're not open after I get home from work. For my husband... if it's not accessible by vehicle, he's not going. A two-mile walk would take him about two hours and he'd be exhausted at the end of it.

My teenagers, OTOH, could happily wander off to a library two miles away and get ebooks. Except that Overdrive is for 18-and-up users only, so it doesn't matter if the library's available to them. (I'm sure plenty of parents and probably some libraries ignore this. I have no idea why so many people think it's reasonable to ignore the age limits of the TOS, but not the "no cracking DRM" parts of the TOS.)

While I could see a reasonable argument for "ebooks, like other library resources, must be accessed through the physical library," that's a very different proposal from "demand is too high, so we're taking away an accessibility feature that people have come to rely on, and restricting ebooks to people who can get to the library itself when it's open."

Had library ebooks always been "you must visit the library to check these out" (ostensibly to be able to check ID, or something like that), it could remain that way. But removing access that people already have is different--and it works out as a way to punish the poor, disabled, and overworked people who are most reliant on libraries for access to books.

[Sydney's Mom]

There was a library at the end of our block when I was a kid. Since I was the only one that used the library, I thought my parents moved to that house just because of me, and I felt guilty. I no longer feel guilty about that - I have other things to obsess over!

[MrsJoseph]

Hmmm, I want to say that I wasn't trying to imply that people with disabilities should get out and hike to the local library...I was responding to the idea that 2 miles = not in walking distance.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Hmmm, I want to say that I wasn't trying to imply that people with disabilities should get out and hike to the local library...I was responding to the idea that 2 miles = not in walking distance.

I agree that 2 miles is walking distance for anyone fairly able-bodied and not dealing with horrifically inclement weather. (Where I live, two miles is always walking distance. In some places and times, two miles of walking is a good way to get frostbite.) I just don't see that as directly related to the accessibility of a library; I'd hate to see them require people to come to the library for digital check-outs on the grounds that "most of our users have cars or are within walking distance."

And as stupid as that sounds... it's not like US politicians at any level are immune to The Stupid. So my semi-ranting is mostly to forestall any lurkers who might think, "anyone should be able to walk two miles to a library."

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

. . . it works out as a way to punish the poor, disabled, and overworked people who are most reliant on libraries for access to books.

The disabled are covered by homebound library services. As for the poor, there probably are some people living in poverty, on this board, who are obvious exceptions, but the poor disproportionately lack eReaders, and tend to use the library for purposes that require physical presence anyway, such as getting on a computer to apply for a job.

As for the overworked, you have me there. That's an excellent point.

Right now, in the US, the only big publisher that thoroughly cooperates with Overdrive seems to be the biggest, Random House. It's not that I want Random House to start requiring physical presence. It's that anything from Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, etc. would be better than the nothing we have now. I don't want to give them the impression that starting to cooperate a little with Overdrive would give them worse publicity than they now experience staying out.

As I have learned in this thread, publishers already sent up a physical presence trial balloon in October, and got a lot of negative feedback about this being a war on libraries and so forth. And, since then, nothing good has happened in terms of more publishers cooperating with Overdrive.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I can do even better. I have a library branch .6 miles away from home.

Heh. No, I was envying zem being able to walk that far.

Our library is pretty close. About a 5 minute drive. But there's no way I could walk it.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Right now, in the US, the only big publisher that thoroughly cooperates with Overdrive seems to be the biggest, Random House. It's not that I want Random House to start requiring physical presence. It's that anything from Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, etc. would be better than the nothing we have now. I don't want to give them the impression that starting to cooperate a little with Overdrive would give them worse publicity than they now experience staying out.

No, it would not.

This is a Your Mileage may Vary issue, sure, but if the 'cost' of getting Simon & Schuster on board is to force people to go physically to their libraries to check out ebooks, then I know I speak for a lot of people -- and, please, pardon my French -- when I say F*^! Simon & Schuster.

Do please pardon my French.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The disabled are covered by homebound library services. .

On what planet? the one where only major costal metro areas exist?

Sorry Steve, some of us live in real life, not a novel.