BlogU

  • The $139 Kindle and the Academic Library

    By Joshua Kim July 29, 2010 9:06 pm EDT

    "If we give up on having library collections (digital or otherwise) and outsource access to and preservation of knowledge to corporations, we will have neither access nor preservation."--Barbara Fister

    Just wanted to start this blog post with Barbara's quote from our 7/29 discussion on libraries and Amazon, as her words continue to rattle around my head.

    On to the new $139 Kindle.

    Someone help me do the math on this one. At what point do we start to save money by buying Kindles and moving our second copy ordering to a Kindle e-book? I say 2nd copy, as I can see the wisdom of having one hardcover for circulation and preservation. No need for an Amazon e-book library lending model, although the lack of one drives me bonkers. Rather, an old-fashioned model where the library buys a bunch of Kindles, puts Kindle books only on that device, and then loans out the device.

    For a long time I've thought that this device lending model made little sense. The library, I believed, should be lending the book (paper or digital), and letting people come with their own devices. But I wonder if the $139 Kindle and the lack of an e-book lending program drives us to a workable model of Kindle device loaning?

    The questions are:

    --Is the price difference between the Kindle version of a book and the hardcover version of a book big enough to reduce the medium run costs of acquisition when the $139 Kindle device purchase is factored in?

    --How many Kindle e-books need to be purchased before the marginal cost of the next Kindle e-book is lower than the marginal cost of the next hardcover book?

    --Is it possible to check out an e-book as opposed to checking out the whole Kindle on which the book resides (even though the patron takes the Kindle with them)? In other words, is there a way to avoid a book begin taken out of circulation with the check-out of the Kindle device, so that e-book can be put on another Kindle?

    --Does this 2nd book idea make any sense? Perhaps the academic library is the wrong model for this, as public libraries are much more likely to order multiple copies of high-demand books.

    All of these questions are really another way of asking at what price points for the Kindle device and the Kindle e-books do the fundamentals of library acquisitions and lending begin to change? How cheap do Kindle devices need to be, and what spread between the price of an e-book and a hardcover, will the Kindle (or other e-readers) begin save libraries money?

    On the consumer side, the $139 Kindle I think is about doing it for me. I have waited to purchase my Kindle with my own money until the device matured and the price dropped, and I'm thinking that the new $139 Kindle is almost at that sweet spot (but I'm still debating a bit). I'm wondering if at $139 if it makes sense to get Kindle's for my kids, and if at that price point getting them a Kindle will be worth the money in order to encourage more reading?

Go to comments (14) »
Advertisement
Open Job?

Comments on The $139 Kindle and the Academic Library

  • Posted by Chris. S on July 29, 2010 at 11:00pm EDT

  • To my mind the biggest problem with the Kindle is still the selection. It seems like most of the university presses have yet to embrace e-books, so it would be particularly hard for an academic library to go electronic. This is the only reason I don't own one yet. If you only read from the NYT bestseller list Kindle will work great for you, but otherwise you won't be able to find much that you want.

    Hopefully in the near future the university presses will get with the program. If that happens I imagine Amazon will be willing to work out some model that works for library users.

  • Digital Text Books
  • Posted by Dr. Harish Chandan , Associate professor of Business at Argosy University on July 30, 2010 at 8:45am EDT

  • Beginning Fall 2010, Argosy University is adopting digital textbooks for a large number of courses. Students and Professors will have access to the digital text books for their courses.

    With Digital text books, students have access to the text book as soon as the course begins. There are no shipping delays. Students have access to the text book for a given period of time even beyond the completion of the course.

    Academic libraries could go to a similar model where patrons could have electronic access for a limited period of time - two weeks for example. The patrons log on to the library website and electronically check out the digital book.

  • Posted by Barbara Fister on July 30, 2010 at 9:00am EDT

  • It's not a price point issue, per se. Kindle's Terms of Service prohibit loaning books. Libraries buy them and load them up with titles, and Amazon has generously said it isn't planning enforcement actions. But it's against the rules, so it would be impossible to buy Kindles on a large scale.

  • Downloads restricted
  • Posted by Rebecca Hedreen , Distance Learning Librarian on July 30, 2010 at 9:30am EDT

  • Technically (terms of service aside) it would be possible to download the specific book, loan the Kindle, get it back, delete the last book, download the next book for the next patron, etc. The books reside in your Amazon account, not just on the device. However, there is a limit on the number of times you can download most books and it's not consistent (or at least it wasn't a few months ago when I was looking at Kindles). So for a few books, it might be load, delete, Ooops!

    I think that loans may work better with a device that you load from a computer, not directly from an online service. Buy the books, download to a circ computer, load the books at checkout, check it back in, delete the books, repeat.

  • What second copy?
  • Posted by Lori , Library Director at Gulf Coast Community College on July 30, 2010 at 9:45am EDT

  • What second copy?
    "At what point do we start to save money by buying Kindles and moving our second copy ordering to a Kindle e-book?"
    Libraries do not have the luxury of purchasing multiple copies, so the issues of circulation and preservation cannot be dismissed. This is a great theoretical discussion but one that is not grounded in the fiscal reality of most libraries.

  • Posted by Greg on July 30, 2010 at 10:45am EDT

  • Joshua, before you go much further on the Kindle, you might want to read the letter that the OCR/DOJ recently sent out to all college Presidents banning the use of technology on campus and for students that can not be made accessible to students with disabilities. the Kindle was specificaly mentioned. There was also a lawsuit concerning this accessibility against the eight schools taking part in a project. the schools were found to be in non compliance.

    Greg

  • Posted by TechieLibrarian on July 30, 2010 at 12:00pm EDT

  • Given that Kindle editions cost about 10-12 dollars, and post discounts most library purchased hardcovers of the same sort cost 15-18, I'd say right around 20 books give or take. This of course ignores Chris's point about limited academic books, costs of replacement devices since students break things, savings on reduced floor space and book maintenance needs, and the very very problematic issues of control of the book and licensing restrictions of Amazon e-books.

    Since the right of first sale isn't applied to e-books (which are licensed usually) in the same way they are to print books, getting copies you can send out to another's device is at the mercy of the retailer's terms which will usually include a nice price hike in my experience with e-versions of books. That is the big issue for most libraries. We've seen it with journal databases, which have constantly rising annual costs and because of their subscription model can hold libraries at ransom. Purchased Kindle books are better, but since books are tied to an account it can lead to issues if Amazon decides to use tiered pricing for a large number of devices being able to access a book.

    Other more open e-readers, like the Sony ones, the Nook, or the pile of smaller creators support a wider range of e-book formats like e-pub which allows a library to say, go to Google Books or Project Gutenberg and download 300 classic works and stick them on a device or 10 to check out. Which saves costs and storage space.

    E-books are also a real risk for knowledge accumulation. File formats change, new devices come out, and over time libraries are at risk of collections becoming obsolete. A phrase I heard somewhere is that for technology a decade is long term, for libraries a century is just starting to be old. If we can't be assured that purchases will last us a century as devices and formats change we give up the role of the library as a repository.

  • Platform-independent e-books
  • Posted by Stefanie on July 30, 2010 at 12:00pm EDT

  • Many academic libraries offer tens of thousands of e-books that are platform-independent. No Kindle required. This allows patrons to read them on their laptops, home computers, and more and more are available on mobile devices. Many academic libraries loan laptops, too. Kindles aren't the answer in my opinion.

  • not all books would work
  • Posted by Anonymous on July 30, 2010 at 1:45pm EDT

  • I'm still not convinced that books with significant visual content, i.e. art history textbooks, art catalogues, etc., will work well on something like a Kindle. What kind of resolution can you get in reproductions of large-scale paintings, for example?

  • Kindles & Academic Libraries
  • Posted by John von Knorring at Stylus Publishing on July 30, 2010 at 1:45pm EDT

  • I'm surprised that no academic librarian has weighed in to point out that an increasing number of scholarly and professioinal books are available on publication in digital formats that allow libraries to make books available to anyone with access to the institution's network -- no Kindle or other proprietary reading device required. Library book wholesalers are working in tandem with aggregators like EBL, Ebrary and netLibrary to make these books available under a variety of different plans. Some allow several simultaneous users, some limit lending to one user at a time in perpetuity, some offer discounts for limited-time access. As of late Fall Stylus Publishing will offer all new titles through all three aggregators, and make them available either simultaneously with, or ahead of, hard copy publicaction.

  • Kindles are good for accessibility, not bad
  • Posted by Max Masnick on July 31, 2010 at 12:30pm EDT

  • @Greg, I haven't looked at the OCR/DOJ document you mention (post a link?) but I think that saying Kindles are bad for accessibility is completely backwards.

    Kindles drastically improve accessibility of books to people with certain kinds of vision-related disability. I'm thinking of people with low vision, where the ability to increase the font size to ridiculously large is a godsend. And, the Kindle can read (some) books out loud.

    This means that libraries don't have to purchase large-print books, and those with low vision could have a much wider selection. (How many large print books are readily accessible at university libraries? Probably not many.)

    Obviously ebook can't be the only medium that libraries use to house their content, but I don't see how using the Kindle to augment traditional collections could decrease their accessibility.

  • First-copy preservation issues
  • Posted by Karen G. Schneider , Director at Cushing Library, Holy Names University on July 31, 2010 at 1:00pm EDT

  • I'm concerned by the fair-use issues Kindle editions represent, but the idea that a legacy print book is well-preserved by being purchased and curated at the local level is something that requires closer analysis. With print-book usage dropping and library space being repurposed to support 21st-century pedagogical practices such as group study and information-literacy instruction, the lone print title sitting on library shelves in a dozen different libraries is highly vulnerable to accidental extinction.

    Intentionally curated centralized mass storage (run by nonprofits, not companies) is the safest future for our legacy print collections (and I realize that's a cold expression, but it helps keep us focused on the distinction between these and eBooks) -- for both the traditional books we own and the traditional books we will continue to acquire for at least the short term.

    These projects are real and they are happening now. They offer the distinct advantage of centralized management with intentional curation to ensure there are the minimum number of "last copies" to ensure the long-term preservation of legacy print books (and journals). They also offer a fair-use alternative that could provide some counterweight to the licensing terms that as others have pointed out will not work in the favor of our user communities or our collections.

    This suggests that the "first copy" may be acquired and curated at the centralized level -- not at the library level -- which requires interlibrary cooperation and trust. Libraries have a long history of working together (that's why interlibrary loan is so successful on many campuses), so this is feasible, but it will take discussion and leadership.

  • Kindles
  • Posted by viclitprof , Assistant Professor of English at Lenoir-Rhyne University on August 1, 2010 at 6:15am EDT

  • @Greg - I'm not certain, but I think the 3rd generation Kindle, scheduled to ship in mid-August, has resolved the issues to which you refer.

    @Chris S - Selection is an interesting issue with ebooks. On the one hand, you're right that many academic titles are not available as ebooks. On the other, ebooks make available an unbelievable number of primary texts that even three or four years ago would have been unavailable to most scholars. As someone who works on 19th-century literature, I find the Kindle to be one of the most useful tools imaginable. Texts that I longed to read during my dissertation-writing period but that were unavailable because only one library in the world owned a copy are now available through google books. The kindle makes them easily readable as opposed to the computer screen which is pretty hard on the eyes.

  • Laptop/E-Book Dispensing Stations (Video)
  • Posted by Bill on August 15, 2010 at 5:30pm EDT

  • Not sure exactly how this fits in, but this video shows an innovative Laptop/E-Book Dispensing Station (Video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA3MvbBGz6E that has recently emerged within Higher Ed / Public Libraries.

Print
© Copyright 2011 Inside Higher Ed