Sharing 2.0 = Library 2.0

I find this discussion on this blog sharing 2.0 to be absolutely fascinating - and somewhat ironic.

Ironic because the debaters work in a library (or close proximity to a library).

Seems like it is reasonable that members of our community would have access to books to share with colleagues, particularly books that contribute to our discipline and professional commitments.

Yet, since the contributors to this blog are also folks who consume a significant proportion of our reading in digital format (and here I'm not distinguishing between audio or e-books, they are both digital copies), we do not get these books from our institutions library.

One irony is how much easier it should be to share a digital copy within our community.  A digital copy takes no shelf-space, and one book can be read by multiple people from a single purchase.  Is it not reasonable to ask why libraries cannot negotiate purchase agreements for digital copies, ones that allow for flexibility of payment based on usage?  If a number of people in an institution want to read one book at one time in order to discuss and debate then this seems like this would be an excellent use of acquisition funds.  Books are valuable when read and discussed.

It's the old Railroad arguments.  Are our libraries in the business of paper books or in the business of facilitating and supporting reading?  (And the production of knowledge that depends on the availability of books, periodicals, media etc.).  If the lives of the authors of CCBlog are any indicator at all then it seems that a good proportion of reading has migrated to the digital world.  I'd hazard a guess that this will be how are students will read, and that we might even reach a wider range of learners if we provided books in all their digital formats.

It's ironic that we are trying to grapple towards a model of sharing 2.0 as unconnected individuals, where in this case the power of the institution to aggregate purchases and enter into larger scale licensing deals is really what is needed. 

Each year I pay over a $1,000 dollars for digital books.  Ironic given that I work in a library.

Sharing 2.0 = Library 2.0

The answer is (literally) just outside our doors.

Comments

[Laura Braunstein]

Librarians talk about these issues all the time! We've had much better luck with licensing agreements for journals than ebooks, though. Libraries are in the business of facilitating and supporting reading and the production of knowledge, but we are also *collecting and disseminating* knowledge -- not just for current users but for posterity, and with a view toward the integrity of the collection itself. So I think in many cases librarians are somewhat reluctant to immediately adopt new platforms for the dissemination of knowledge (i.e. the Kindle) until we've determined that they fit with those values. But a more immediate question -- does our library have books (e- or otherwise) that interest instructional technologists? If not, we should get them!

[Joshua Kim]

Laura...thanks for the post. Looking forward to this conversation. I wonder what the opportunities exist with Audible and Amazon (which owns Audible).

We keep a list of the audio books in our collection:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dc3kt3xc_80px7zh8f7

And we are just starting to explore digital books - with all of us using the iTouch/iPhone Kindle app.