Chances are that the disadvantaged will also have limited, or no, access to the internet and suitable reading devices so there’s a wider information access problem to solve. If you’re prepared to subsidise information access for targeted groups, you can also subsidise the information itself at a commercial rate (including the cost of ebooks). I have no problem with this approach since it doesn’t require that everyone, rich or poor, be provided with free, or almost free, access to books to the detriment of the publishers, authors and wider industry.

What an elitist assumption about the ways that people use libraries! Why do you want to deprive the thousands of preschoolers who are introduced to stories and the wonders to be found in books–at their libraries? What about those people (adults and children) of modest means who love to read but could not possibly afford to purchase, or store, all the books that they want to read?

As an ebook supplier to libraries (and a licensee of the ebrary platform,) here’s how we address the issue. (After much consultation with both publishers and libraries.)

First, we disallow access outside the IP range of the institution. This is standard practice in the online ebook world.

But we do permit our library customers to use the ebook as a source for copying or printing for interlibrary loan purposes (subject to Copyright Act restrictions.) Electronic copying doesn’t work well in the ebrary system, which allows only ascii copying, so the only practical answer for the library is printing and sending through the ILL system.

Granted, it’s not perfect, but both publishers and libraries seem to accept this.

And I admit that it does pose problems in the National Library setting, where everyone’s a cardholder. But in Canada, I believe the National Library ILL policy is restricted to walkins, so we could sell an ebook to our National Library (Library and Archives Canada) without a worry on the ILL front.

Of course the mechanics are all in place in the ebrary system as well as other online library suppliers for micropayments. And that’s the real answer. Just as libraries now charge users for photocopying, why shoudn’t they charge them a per-page fee for ebook ILL?

But until the knee-jerk reaction in library circles against charges like this disappears, ebook suppliers and publishers aren’t going to offer the option.

Larry Henry

Looking up at the kerfuffle he turned to his companion and said – ‘you know – those two will never agree – they are arguing from different premises’
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I know -very Basil Brush – but hey – what else can I say, apart from responding to one of Martin’s questions ” in this digital age, is there really any public good justification for making vast numbers of books available free ..”

As Alison Dobbie of ACL has already pointed out the free word just isn’t helpful or accurate.

Libraries pay for their stock, and then lend them out to their customer/membership base.

The latter are based on geographic local authorities – i.e. the library is a community service bought and paid for by the community rate.

How e-books can be distributed within terms that compensate the author and their agents can be managed – it just needs us to think up methods which are equitable to all sides.

For sure this might involve some kind of DRM rights – however, I’m not seeing the current methods [ Overdrive for example] as anywhere near offering a satisfactory experience for author – reader or agent or library.

But we can still figure this out.

However, to do that we need to take a step back and acknowledge the public library os a key resource for learning – education – community development, and preserving our local and national heritage.

It’s a living breathing institution with almost 200 years of personal and community empowerment. It’s not a shop – it’s a key institution of civil society which has always paid its dues.

Your argument seems to be very similar to the old argument vis-à-vis libraries holding print copies of books for sale. As [public] libraries became common and popular, the retail outlets and publishers were concerned that increased access to free works would push down their potential sales. If anything the reverse was true, and libraries became the principal purchasers of expensive works, which increased their print run size. I don’t see why the electronic environment will necessarily be different.

In the same way that libraries have housed at public cost the hard copy back catalogue of published works so quickly out of print, to ensure public access, so libraries will store and preserve at immense public cost, the digitised memory to ensure that it too remains available for the future. This need to store and preserve the NZ digital memory is a key National Library responsibility which is being addressed as part of the requirements for their new building.

To deny libraries the right to lend e-books is to deny equity of access to the future world of information and reading. Publishers on their own cannot meet this need.