As a technically inclined person, I get excited about the potential of e-books. I had a tablet once and it was so fun to read a novel and get easy access to the on-board dictionary and to look up obscure references in the browser. When my tablet bought the farm (I bought it used and now I know why they sold it) I felt betrayed by the world of technology, and sought solace in my reliable books. Now, I didn't pay much for my tablet relative to what's out there. Let's just say in my position, my budget is limited, but I had hoped for better.
Not everyone can use technology. Some eschew it for their own reasons. Some can't afford it, plain and simple. Some remain ignorant of how to use it. Some have a combination of these challenges. Libraries cannot be empowered to change some of these challenges, and some of them they try to, with varying success.
One additional challenge that faces libraries is the behavior of publishers who apparently take the position that libraries are trying to undermine their bottom line by loaning ebooks to many people rather than just one. I assume their viewpoint is that if people can just check out an ebook at the library, they won't pay for their own copy. If they had their way (and some are actually attempting to have it so) their books would never appear in a library collection at all. Each individual would have to buy the book from them at the price the publisher sets.
Let's imagine that publishers long ago had figured things this way for regular books. They might have said they would not sell to libraries. Instead, libraries would have had to be built on used books. Many libraries in existence today started out as private collections, so it is a possible scenario. Instead of having a budget for new books, donations would be the source for new acquisitions The assumption would be that ownership of the book transferred to the customer upon payment.
It is also possible that a new service would arise in which you could 'rent' books owned by an aggregator, just as used to happen with video stores. Once you read them, you would have to bring them back for the next customer to use. In effect, it would be a for profit private library.
If public libraries continue in the direction of being less about books and being about "communities" instead, this model could ostensibly come to pass. Libraries could take the position that publishers have made providing books to the entire reading public untenable. It might instead be that some books would be kept as a side service -- like magazines in a doctor's office.
All of this ties into the future of ebooks. Thinking of these kinds lead to the approaches publishers and libraries have taken regarding them. I would say the cooperative publisher has taken the long view. They want ebooks to become ubiquitous. They want everyone to have access so they will get used to them and integrate them into their lives. Once they develop that demand, prices can rise to what the expanded market will bear.
Others take the short view. They want their money and they want it now. Maybe their bosses expect big profits immediately. Perhaps they don't trust the longevity of the demand for the product. It would seem a self fulfilling prophesy -- "let's make it expensive so almost no one can afford it." Only the rich will buy it and there are so few of them, it will ultimately fail from lack of demand. I don't get it, but then I don't have an MBA. Maybe it makes sense to them.
The more fooling around they do, the longer it will take for ebooks to have the ubiquity of print. Some libraries have tried to band together to protest the obstructive position some publishers have taken. I wouldn't waste my time. Let them keep their ebooks. Other publishers who are friendly will get the exposure, the publicity, and authors who publish with them will be better known.
The world doesn't just go in one direction, and libraries and publishers aren't monolithic. Librarians choose the best options available to them and companies come and go and change their approaches to suit the vagaries of the market. But one advantage of writing a weblog is that you can say what you would do as 'King of the Forest'. In my kingdom, publishers would treat electronic books as something to buy. Once you owned it, you could give it to whomever you wished. You wouldn't be allowed to copy it, that wouldn't be fair, but your copy could be transferred so long as you gave up use of it once you did the transfer. In such a system, as in some systems in existence now, and as it is with print materials, ownership or possession could transfer at will and the materially could be read by a succession of people. Whether I ever see that reality arrive is a matter of continuing debate.
