The Future is Here

ReadersFirst has had a look at the SimplyE app.  A big thanks to James English of New York Public Library for the preview. [Full disclosure: James is a participant in the ReadersFirst Working Group)

SimplyE (and soon SimplyE for Consortia) is the name of the app promulgated by the Library Simplified project, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and NYPL, with Minitex providing matching dollars (and much more!). RAILS and the Massachusetts State Library will help develop and implement the app, with many partners and further support from the Library E-Content Access Project in collaboration with the Digital Public Library of America.

This library version of a Supergroup has asked the question, dear to the hearts of ReadersFirst: “What would make the library easier to use?” Their answer is to build the library app we’ve all been waiting for:

·         Works across content provider platforms that provide APIs (note to providers—get those APIs in order if you want to be in the game)

·         Open source, allowing for continual improvement

·         Brandable—libraries can use their own graphics

·         Easy to use—just enter a library card number go, with no need for DRM signup (though DRM is working in the background) and with a full range of accessibility features

·         Easy to integrate into existing library systems, providing a gateway to all eContent and even the whole catalog

·         Ultimately able to access content from a public library domain and maybe even a nonprofit content exchange, with deals struck with publishers at terms favorable to libraries

Although the app is still in development, ReadersFirst has been able to get many questions answered in its first look at the Android app.

Is it easy to start? Oh, yes! Enter the library card number and pin and it fires up. No need for DRM or emails here. It is the easiest start for any library eBook app.  

Does content really come with three clicks or less? Yes. The app is set up for first browsing browsing, with the main categories being Best Sellers, Staff Picks (a great way to feature less well-known but significant titles), Fiction, Non-fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Nonfiction, Children and Middle Grade, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Other Languages. Libraries can of course adjust these shelves. Readers may enter keywords in a convenient search box. Swipe left to browse titles and touch “More” at the end of a row to keep browsing. One may sort by author, availability, or collection (“Everything,” “Main, ““Popular”) Titles have a small box next to them that says “Get” or “Reserve” (if not available due to publisher one book/one reader licensing). Touch your title and it downloads. Next one sees a button that says “Read” (with a listing of how long is left on the loan) or “Return Now.” (One may also “Report and Issue.”) Touch “Read” and the book opens.

Does it work across platforms? ReadersFirst seamlessly got licensed content from OverDrive, 3M, and Axis 360 plus Open Access content from Project Gutenberg, Unglue.it, and Standard eBooks (OPen Access content which may be kept perpetually). Touch on a book cover to see the vendor it comes from, along with a plot synopsis and reviews.

Is it easy to adjust font and background color or navigate within the book? Yes. Buttons in the upper right allows easy adjustments of font size, screen color (white, black, sepia), and font type (including OpenDyslexic), and screen light level, plus hyperlinks to chapter starts (RF might suggest a keyword search option). Font sizes can get very large indeed.

Can one easily manage one’s account from the app?  A “bookshelf” icon on the upper left gives access to “Catalog,” “My Books,” “Reservations,” “Help,” and “Settings.” Touch the cover of a title in “My Books” and get the option to read or return. “Reservations” lists the titles on which one has a hold. “Help” actually is helpful, with the ability to request support or many topics for any potential trouble-shooting or questions one might have. This "Help" functionality is part of an advanced ticket management system is powered by Zendesk or Desk.com, who both provide non-profit pricing that libraries can leverage to extend their support services beyond just eBooks.

Are there any other cool features RF hasn’t explored? We haven’t reviewed the accessibility features, but the wide adjustibility of fonts should be very helpful. The app's control buttons may be read aloud in a text-to-speech feature and should offer access for the visually impaired. There’s a lot going on “behind” the app, including interesting metadata harvesting and Readium/EPUB 3 to make titles visually appealing and functional.” Ultimately, the app will be useful for academics, with “citations, group annotations, and embedded assessments.” EAudiobooks wil be supported. Look here for some FAQs. Development is by no means done, and libraries are encouraged to participate to help perfect it.

What’s the Verdict?  This app promises to revolutionize the library eBook experience. Its functionality realizes the goals for which ReadersFirst has been advocating for years. We wish it every success. We’ll post more as its features develop and we get to do more testing. How far it goes, however, is very much dependent upon libraries and librarians. If enough of us get behind it, its use becomes common, and the non-profit marketplace that might develop becomes scalable, we may all benefit from a versatile and easy-to-use app that gives us a one-stop answer to content across platforms and  that can even save us money on materials budgets. Why not get interested and involved? The future is waiting, if we make it so.

Michael Blackwell for RF and St Mary's County Library

The eBook Super Friends

Yes, the name sounds like a new comic, but the group is real and ready to make a difference in library eBook Services. Initiated by LJ Mover & Shaker Veronda Pitchford, the eBook Super Friends present "A meta-opportunity to share information across eBook projects" (thanks to notes from Amy Hitchner, the source of all quotations herein). The group hopes to accomplish the following:

• "Facilitate idea and resource sharing on a national level about eBook and eResource projects.

• Provide a bigger picture direction as a reference for smaller libraries."

Attending the initial meeting were the following super friends, many of them ReadersFirst members. This group--all of them surely members of any "Who's Who" list of digital content providers--and the organizations they represent will be a powerful voice for library eBook advocacy. They will focus on eBooks first but may extend their concerns to many other digital media. 

• Amy Hitchner, Colorado State Library

• Andrew Medlar, Chicago Public Library

• Christine Peterson, Amigos Library Services

• Kelvin Watson, Queens Library

• Maura Marx, IMLS

• Micah May, NYPL & ReadsersFirst

• Michael Colford, Boston Public Library

• Michelle Bickert, DPLA

• Paula MacKinnon, Califa

• Regan Harper, Colorado State Library

• Toby Greenwalt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

• Veronda Pitchford, RAILS

• Wendy Cornelisen, Georgia Public Library Service

Expect outreach, resource sharing, and advocacy in the future, with more news to follow from this week's DPLAFest. 

ReadersFirst supports this group and pledges to support their efforts, share their advocacy, and join our voices to theirs for the good of libraries and library readers.

Bezos, Amazon Launch Library Co-opteration Initiative

Dateline: April 1
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos today took the stage with the usual choreographed flourishes to announce a new Amazon program for libraries.

“For too long,” Bezos explained, “libraries have operated in an eBook dark ages, unable to offer a variety of titles due to budgeting limitations, dishing out popular fiction while often ignoring nonfiction and substantive fiction, and seeing patrons limited by outmoded ‘one book/one user’ checkout business models that prevent libraries from realizing the true potential of digital content. Today, those dark ages end.  Amazon is shining a bright light that will allow libraries to enter the 21st Century. We call it “Library Co-opteration.”

“In this model,” Bezos continued, “library readers will get access to all of Amazon’s published titles using a Kindle, the BEST eReader product EVER developed. But wait . . . there’s more. We have lots of other authors, too, with names to conjure with. We’ve worked out arrangements with authors to get paid on a per-use basis. Our first author is James Patterson. One we got him . . .  um, once he enthusiastically endorsed us, all the others lined up, knowing that they had no choi . . . um, that this would be a great way for ALL authors to get more visibility with the help of those great champions of the book, librarians. We have Roberts, Coban, Sparks, you name ‘em, if a book is worth reading, or even if it’s not, we’ve got ‘em.”

“For a mere $1 per library user, libraries can get access to a robust catalog, with every title offering simultaneous access to unlimited library users. There’s even a brandable app. It says ‘_____ library has been Co-opterated!’ Just fill in your name and logo. It’s THAT EASY. The small 'Powered by Amazon' logo is barely visible.”

When reached for comment, the AAP President said “I am ExLIbris of AmaBorg. Resistance is futile. Library life, as it has been, is over. We are being well paid. More books than ever will be read. Reading will once again reach the primacy it once had as a form of entertainment and information. From this time forward, you will service  . . . Amazon.”

A spokesperson for library eBook vendor OverDrive exclaimed, “We’re having to completely revamp our app, again, but soon it will give access to every one of the Amazon Library Co-Opteration titles. And our users will get this bonus feature: OverDriveCo-OpterationRead, with access to titles in the browser of your choice, as long as you’re using a Kindle Fire!”

A bemused ALA President Sari Feldman noted “Our Digital Content Working Group is formulating a response. But Amazon is offering free Kindles to every library user registered in the program. It seems like Amazon might be trying to use libraries, but this initiative could certainly help ‘Libraries Transform’ the reading landscape.”  

Kindle Update

ReadersFirst doesn't sanction or promote any device; however, since many library eBook readers use Kindles (and often not the newest version), we thought we'd share this news from Amazon, mostly so that our member librarians know and can be ready to answer trouble-shooting questions from patrons at library desks and help lines. 

We are not sure if this update (which must be completed by today or done in a more laborious fashion later) will affect Wi-Fi access to library content.  If you know, please post!

Is Spying on Readers Inevitable?

In "Moneyball for Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read," Alexandra Alter and Karl Russell of the NYT look at how Jellybooks is tracking eBook readers habits. The results are not too surprising. On a "successful" book (from a marketing standpoint, at least), some 62% of readers finish. On books that have had "marketing scaled back," 90% of readers give up after five chapters.

Alter and Russell discuss some concerns that authors might have over such tracking. They also discuss what it might mean for readers: "But as the book industry gets more sophisticated about how to measure reading behavior and the practice becomes more widespread, real privacy concerns could emerge. . . . Regular e-book readers might not realize that digital retailers are recording and storing the data. A few years ago, California instituted the 'reader privacy act,' which made it harder for law enforcement agencies to collect information on consumers’ digital reading records from e-book retailers. But most other states have not taken such steps." They conclude that "Having Companies Reading Over Your Shoulder Is Probably Inevitable."

We in libraries have long known that major retailers such as Amazon have access to this sort of data. This articles raises, once again, concerns about what library eBook providers might have access to. Are they tracking reading habits similarly? Are our readers aware? If they are, do we wish to see such information ourselves? Do we have the right to see it if our readers haven't specifically given permission? With who else might such data be shared--publishers?

ReadersFirst strongly supports library readers' privacy and advocates that library eBook vendors collect data on reading habits only with readers' full knowledge, only if a library also agrees for it readers, and data not be shared with any one except for libraries--and only then for each individual library's specific readers. We can't control what Amazon does with our readers who get library eBooks there--though we are interested in what Amazon is doing.

What are your thoughts on collecting data on library readers' eBook habits?   

Look, Ma--No Nook!

To no one's great surprise, B&N is hastening its retrograde advance from  the Nook tablet and eBook device.

ReadersFirst has no stake in the success or failure of any commercial device, but, ever the cheerful optimists--Pollyanna with a love of APIs--we wish to point out that Nooks of all sorts should still work with most library eBook platforms.  Any apps should not disappear.  E-Ink devices should still work with the cumbersome (but  at least effective) sideloading method. Not feeling the love from corporate America?  Why not give your local library eBook collection a try!

Anyone want to place a wager on when B&N's Nook support is off the books?  

Firing Up Encryption

Dave Smith with Tech Insider reports that March 5 that Amazon has reversed its decision to remove encryption from the latest Kindle Fire OS update. 

Smith Explains, "Amazon issued the following statement to Tech Insider on Saturday morning: 'We will return the option for full disk encryption with a Fire OS update coming this spring,' the company said."

Apparently the latest OS update removed encryption in December. Amazon claimed that device encryption were among the "enterprise features that we found customers weren't using." The company has not provided any reason why it is re-offering encryption, but likely factors include customer discontent in the wake of the revelation that Fires wren't encrypted and new awareness about encryption in light of the FBI/Apple fight over breaking into an iPhone.

ReadersFirst is happy to hear that Amazon has changed its mind. Our experience suggests that library eBook readers tend to be proud of what they read and are more likely to share their lists on social media than to hide anything.  Still, we wish to hold any device connected with library eBooks--and Kindle Fires often are employed for this purpose--to the highest possible standards of user privacy.  

Michael @ St Mary's County Library     

Is the Commercial eBook Market Really Slowing Down?

We have all heard that eBooks sales have recently plateaued. At least one writer has suggested, interestingly, that at least part of that slowdown may be attributed to Amazon sales, but NOT because of Amazon.

Gene Douchette's  THE COLLECTIVE INSANITY OF THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY discovers a smoking gun implicating the Big 5. His point is fascinating. 

"Hachette fought for, and won from Amazon, the return to something called the Agency Model, whereby they set their price and Amazon wasn’t allowed to reduce that price.  So that $15.99 book stayed at $15.99 until Hachette decided to change it."

"Soon after that contract was signed, the other Big 5 contracts came due, and they all asked for the same Agency Model arrangement.  Thus, the finest minds in publishing—or one might assume—negotiated themselves out of an arrangement whereby they sold more units at a lower cost without suffering the financial impact that comes with a lower unit cost."

"After securing the right to price their ebooks unreasonably high and having those prices stick, the first thing the collective brain-trust of the Big 5 did was raise their ebook prices even more.  Often, the prices were higher than the price of the print edition, which is just fundamentally insane."

"It should come as very little surprise to you that after jacking up the prices of their ebooks at the start of 2015, the Big 5 sold fewer ebooks."

"Now here’s the fun part, the part that just makes me shake my head and giggle and wonder how I can live in such extraordinary times.  After six months of depressed ebook sales, the Big 5 announced that the ebook market was slowing down."

"Not: 'we priced ourselves out of the market and stopped selling as many books. No no no.  The ebook market!  Is slowing down!

"This was celebrated!"

"I mean it.  One article after another, from the New York Times on down came news pieces declaring that print was making a comeback at long last, and the long national nightmare was over."

"All it took was the biggest publishing companies in the world deliberately murdering their own share of the market.  And it wasn’t even true."

Thanks, Gene, for your interesting view. Readers, please check out the whole of Gene's article and post back your thoughts!

The Dedicated eReader Lives

The dedicated eReader (with its pitiful eInk screen and inability to do little other than read books) was supposed to join the GPS unit, the MP3 player, and the camcorder in the dustbin of history, buried by tablets and smart phones. According to a study from eMarketer, however, there's still life in the old device yet.

The article predicts eReader use will increase by 3.5%. While the tablet market is far larger and expected to grow by 4.7% in the same time span, the eReader isn't disappearing yet: "the age of users is shifting for ereaders. This year, baby boomers will be the most likely ereader users, with 44.0% of internet users in that generation using the devices." 

That dedicated eReader has some advantages in price point, ease of reading in some light conditions, and battery life is no news to librarians, who have helped many an older reader learn to use devices given to them by their children or grandchildren. This study highlights the continuing need to improve the library eBook experience, not only from apps but from our catalogs, using APIs to provide as few clicks and the most direct experience from the library's site as possible, so that all our readers can get content as easily as possible.  

Open eBooks Launched

Wednesday, February 24th saw the launch of the Open eBooks program. Aimed at helping the neediest students in the country, this initiative promises to bridge the digital content divide. Teachers and others who offer programs for the economically disadvantaged, special education or disabled children can get codes to distribute. Children with codes can  access some 10,000 titles for free on smartphones and tablets.

Launching the initiative, First Lady Michelle Obama said “For so many of us, books opened our minds to a world of possibility. Unfortunately, right now, millions of children in America don’t have that chance because they don’t have adequate access to the books they need to learn and dream. The new Open eBooks app will change that.”

While they may have to think of novel ways to get reading devices to the children, librarians may be able to make use of this program. If program participants are 70% or over in one of the groups served, they can be provided access. My library has programs and partnerships with Head Start and Judy Center (it's a Maryland thing) kids, and we are alerting our partners and looking at providing tablets to give access.  This program is part of the ConnectED initiative, and any library that has taken the ConnectED Challenge might make plans to help.

ReadersFirst thanks the Open eBooks founding partners:  Digital Public Library of America, The New York Public Library, First Book, digital books distributor Baker & Taylor (on whose platform the app is based), and financial supporters the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  Also worthy of thanks are the publishers who have donated content:

• Bloomsbury: Providing unlimited access to over 1,000 of its most popular titles.
• Candlewick: Providing unlimited access to all relevant children’s and young-adult eBook titles in their catalog.
• Cricket Media: Offering full digital access to all of its market-leading magazines for children and young adults, including Ladybug and Cricket.
• Hachette: Offering access to a robust catalog of their popular and award-winning titles.
• HarperCollins: Providing a vast selection of their award-winning and popular titles.
• Lee & Low: Providing unlimited access to over 700 titles from this leading independent publisher of multicultural books.
• Macmillan: Providing unlimited access to all of the K-12 age-appropriate titles in their catalog of approximately 2,500 books.
• National Geographic: Providing unlimited access to all of their age-appropriate content.
• Penguin Random House: Committing to provide an extensive offering of their popular and award-winning books.
• Simon & Schuster: Providing access to their entire e-catalog of books for children ages 4-14, comprised of 3,000 titles.

We can't think of a better gift than the gift of reading.  Let's hope this initiative will be a step in publishers, content providers, and libraries  working together more closely to improve existing library eBook models. That thanks (and wish being) given, what are your thoughts on this initiative?  I hope you share the news, and comment to us!

Michael Blackwell, Director, St Mary's County Library