OverDrive is destroying libraries.

[loviedovie]

Ok this is a controversial topic with an aggressive title. However like all such topics, it needs attention.

As this trend of OD providing most ebooks and audio books to the libraries grows, I see more and more OD tentacles everywhere.

I feel like in 15 years OD will control the flow of all such digital content around most countries. In return, most public libraries around the world will become web site shells and vehicles for delivering OD content because most of them wont need physical places anymore. Is that bad? I think it is pretty bad.

Just think about this side effect everytime you conveniently borrow your OD ebooks from your local library.

There are other things to be scared of when it comes to OD and such corporations providing content to the libraries. For instance your privacy is very much comprimised on multiple levels. Before it was just you borrowing a book from your local lib. Now everyone involved will have big dossiers about your borrowing/reading behaviours. The other issue is the filtering. We all might end up living in bigger filter bubbles due to corporate algorithms controlling our reading/borrowing actions.

Once most of the take over is done, most librarians will be out of job. Any librarian thinks that OD is cool, he or she should worry about the future prospects of their jobs. A fully digital public library that is controlled by a corporate master wont need floor jobs anymore.

We need to force libraries to do the hard work not easy work. Easy work easy, you just let OD to take over public interest. The hard work is to get our libraries to understand the technology, understand the future trends and behave accordingly if possible, at least work towards the public interest.

If people want corporate controlled and filtered digital/audio book content they can always go for Amazon.



Anyway, enough said. I would like to hear what others think about this matter.

Cheers

[Sydney's Mom]

I have a small library in my village of 7,000. It carries some books, but a large portion of the books I borrow come from other libraries in the system. If my library offered ebooks, I would have very few to choose from. Quite a few small cities and villages teamed up on Overdrive to offer ebooks. I would like it if my library, through their consortium, would figure out how to offer ebooks more cheaply than Overdrive, which I hear is expensive. But my library has enough trouble just maintaining its building, and I suspect other members are experiencing the same. If large metropolitan libraries are not seeing the value in not using Overdrive, my library won't, as well.

The one thing Overdrive is doing for my library is pushing up its numbers. I used to go onto the online catalogue and order books. I would pick them up at the library. But I had to pick them up within 4 days of arrival, and could only keep them 7-21 days. So I kind of went in fits and starts. Now, I have 3 library cards (mine, my husband's and my daughter's). That gives me 15 checkouts (only my husband reads ebooks, and I use the card to get him things as well). And I just about always use all 15 slots. And my husband and daughter never went to the library. So the numbers for ebooks show how much value the community is getting from the library. And it is better now than it was before Overdrive.

[CWatkinsNash]

I'm confused about your "hard work" alternative. OD is currently the best option for ebooks that offers a sufficient selection with (comparatively) minimal pain for the end user. The fact is, if the selection is no good or the pain factor is too high, they simply won't be used. It isn't as though libraries can offer their own solution, at least not without severely limiting the selection.

There is no going back. Many people are making use of their local library system that didn't or couldn't before digital services became widespread.

I would like to hear more about what you feel the alternative is.

[eschwartz]

I don't really understand the premise of this thread.

ebooks can be gotten over the internet, without need for librarians.
That is true, no matter what service provides the ebooks.

Librarians are, in that sense, already as obsolete as they are going to get.

...

Paper books aren't going away any time soon.
Certainly not in the libraries.

...

Libraries have increasingly started moving towards being community/cultural centers, and providing public internet among other things.
Librarians serve knowledge, not books -- books are just a convenient form of knowledge that has been in use for a long time. They recognize that, and are trying hard to make sure they stay relevant. (In an age when movies and video games have displaced books as the most popular form of entertainment, when newspapers and magazines have moved online to blogs and everything across the board is transitioning away from paper, this requires a fundamental re-evaluation of what a library is.)
And on the whole, they have been doing a good job, I think.



To reduce the issue down to "OverDrive provides all the ebooks, therefore they control the future of our libraries" is, IMHO, incredibly insulting to libraries everywhere, and demeans the actual challenges they are facing.

[eschwartz]

And of course, on the topic of OverDrive's #1 position in providing digital checkout services, libraries can and must roll their own paper collections by definition.
Which you cannot do with ebooks, unless you want to start your own extremely expensive DRM fulfillment platform. (Or lease Adobe's which is still expensive plus is controlled by a corporation that scares me more than OverDrive does.) Then personally negotiate with publishers, storing ebooks you have purchased, building your own ebook library frontend (because I don't know of any libraries that actually wrote their own cataloging software, they usually purchase it from the handful of vendors who write library cataloging software for a living and sell it to hundreds/thousands of libraries), writing an app (and excluding E-Ink) if you went without Adobe...

There is some competition to OverDrive, sort of like there is some competition to Amazon.
But they tend to be inferior, and why on earth do you expect libraries to act against their own best interests, just to assuage your paranoia?



FYI -- libraries are far more obsessed about privacy than you are. It is tied to their job.
And OverDrive has pretty decent privacy policies I think. They have to, as a fundamental part of the business they are in.

According to the EFF (if you are interested in privacy then I am sure you know of them), OverDrive does not keep track of your personal search and lending history: https://www.eff.org/pages/reader-privacy-chart-2012
OverDrive is one of the better names on that list.

[theducks]

My town has 5 Libraries (includes 'Childrens'). That is a lot of paper books.

Overdrive offers a POOL of e-books that member Libraries can draw on.

If I understand, the depth of the pool (number of copies) is by per member Library (by the contract) There might be 3 copies of a title available here for locals to draw on, while the next town over only can draw 2 of those. (there are only 3 books-licenses in the whole system)

Think of the device (DRM) licensing chaos if every library used a different provider

[Catlady]

I like Overdrive and wish my local library would return to using it.

[ApK]

You might as well have made the claim when libraries started offering Internet access, that ISPs were going to destroy libraries with their corporate control of the flow of information.

I think this is a non-issue.

If anything, I agree with the others that by offering an in-demand service, OD is helping keep libraries relevant in more people's lives.

[Cosimo]

With all honesty, I can say I just don't give a #$@%.

I operate under the assumption that any government organization that wants to know all about me already does. I'm fine with that and I try to make it as easy as possible. I don't talk on my phone, I only text. I charge absolutely everything to the same account. The only thing more boring than my actual, everyday life, would be how it must read on paper.

[JSWolf]

I like reading eBooks and Overdrive gives me that ability.

There are a lot of people who are elderly, disabled, or in need of large print. eBooks help a lot. You don't have to go to the library when the weather is bad. You don't have to worry about returns. For those who need large print, they have a very small amount of books they can choose from.They can change the font size in order to be able to read.

eBooks are very popular from the library. So saying we should not have them is not doing what people want.

[Cinisajoy]

Our local library has movies, music, books, magazines and a great genealogy section. And computers. They also offer free wifi.
Libraries are and always have been much more than books.
Oh and some have older newspapers on microfiche for research.

[loviedovie]

Let me clarify my position.

I am not talking about the benefits of OD or how awesome it is. I am talking about the long term effects on the way the local libraries operate.

Now maybe you do not give a damn flying bird poop about this issue. However I am claiming that in 20 years you wont be able to borrow paper books or ebooks that are owned by the library from your local libs. Probably you still will be able to borrow paper books, but with special permission, and not to take out of to the library. And all the ebooks and the digital contents that your local lib will provide you will come through OD. OD will decide and filter while maybe keeping an eye on the market needs.


Come back to this topic 20 years later and write what you think about the state of the local libraries then. I am saying that as long as most people think that this is the libraries should operate, like letting a corporation run the backend and the frontend of our libraries, we wont have free and fair libraries in the future. Probably the number of physical libraries will diminish and those who can stand against the sands of time will mostly be culture centers. Again you do not need physical hospitable buildings to provide digital lending library services. For instance Gutenberg.org and Archive.org does not have cafes or buildings to hang around.


Anyway the issue I am raising here has nothing to do with paper books whatsoever. I am talking about one corporation dominating our libraries. Paperbooks will be here for a while, that is not the main issue. OD providing lending library or not does not make a difference on the fate of paper books. That is just the way techology replacing another tachnology. That should not be the part of the discussion here.

[loviedovie]

Originally Posted by ApK

If anything, I agree with the others that by offering an in-demand service, OD is helping keep libraries relevant in more people's lives.

No, it is not keeping libraries relevant to people`s lives. It is keeping OD`s own fate relavant to people's lives.

OD is a corporation, it is not a non-profit and does not work for public interest unless it is forced by the people or the market.

[Cinisajoy]

What makes you think we won't be able to borrow paper books?
And what do you mean by a corporation running our libraries?

Just because there is one main repository for ebooks does not mean that they will close library doors.

E-books are just one small part of a library.
Now are you supporting your local library? Either through usage or donations?

You seem to have a limited view of what a library does.
And not all libraries use overdrive.

[loviedovie]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

What makes you think we won't be able to borrow paper books?

Just because there is one main repository for ebooks does not mean that they will close library doors.
.

You said it. There is "one" main repository. Our libraries will need more and more OD blood in the future, like addiction. And addiction is no good.


I naturally try to support local library as much as possible. I do not even mind if the city increases taxes to keep my library independent from corporate take over like that.

I never used OD myself, and I highly discourage my friends using them, for a reason.