Carmi Parker: "Equitable Access is the Future for All of Us"

Carmi Parker, ILS Administrator for Whatcom County Library System (disclosure: also RF Working Group Member) has written a post for the Library Futures, a group dedicated to taking “control of our digital futures.”

The piece is very much worth a read, and I encourage anyone interested in library digital content to do so. After reviewing some recent changes in licensing and some publishers refusal to license to libraries at all, the deleterious effect this as upon readers and publishers, the recent Panorama project study on “avid engagers,” and some suggestions for models and pricing that might prove beneficial for authors, publishers, and libraries, Ms. Parker asks three questions in need of answering:

• Why is eLending growing?

• How do less- or more-restrictive access models impact authors’ discoverability and sales over time?

• How might eBooks and eAudiobooks help create audiences and careers for the 21st century authors of color whose voices will enrich our communities?

She concludes powerfully, “One of Library Futures principles states that equitable access is the future of libraries. But I will go further: equitable access is the future for publishers too, the future for all of us.”

Ms. Parker makes some interesting suggestions for how to make it so. We hope for dialogue between stakeholders to makeit happen.