A sequel to the editor's previous book No Shelf Required: E-books in Libraries, published in 2010, this new book examines further issues and initiatives in the fast-developing world of electronic book usage. The contributors are all American and while, of course, this should not undermine the value of their insights and experiences, it would have been interesting to have included some perspectives from other countries, particularly the UK.
It is a book for managers and others implementing and overseeing e-book services in their libraries, not for end-users of e-books. The book covers all sectors, but its focus is largely on usage in public and school libraries. In many respects it takes a step back from the practical considerations of making e-books available to users, and looks instead at the wider, long-term implications of the move to digital formats. The chapter on RDA, for example, is an interesting and useful summary of this subject in its own right. The chapter concludes that, while RDA may not have much relevance for e-book managers in the short term, in future we are likely to see greater possibilities for precise searching of the intellectual content (as distinct from just the bibliographic data) of e-books than was ever possible with AACR2, the old cataloguing standard.
There are chapters on e-book preservation and on weeding e-books, which at first glance might appear to be mutually opposed activities. However, the first of these looks at the intricacies of e-book file formats and digital rights management, and the implications of these for long-term, secure preservation of intellectual content, while the second is more concerned with ensuring and maintaining access to current material appropriate to the users of a particular collection or institution. These two activities have always been important aspects of library and information management, but the fast-changing and complex nature of digital formats imposes significant new challenges for library managers, which demand different approaches from those that might once have been appropriate for printed materials, and these are further complicated by legal issues surrounding the licensing and use of the digital product.
Several chapters discuss issues surrounding the provision and use of e-book-readers (as distinct from e-books themselves) within libraries, which of course represents a new activity that was not previously necessary for conventional printed books. These include case studies looking at the loan and promotion of i-Pads and Kindle e-book readers in college and school libraries in the United States. It is acknowledged that legal issues surrounding this are unclear since “looking at the terms of use of both the Barnes and Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle, nowhere is library use addressed”. Indeed, throughout this book one gets the sense of shifting sands where legal issues are concerned, as publishers are understandably keen to maintain their control over the use, licensing and ownership of digital resources, and their income therefrom. There is clearly continuing tension between the needs of enabling the use of digital resources, and protecting the rights and income of authors and publishers. We can expect this to be an ongoing debate between publishers and the information profession.
Considered as a whole, this is a useful collection of essays for those wanting information and ideas about recent trends in e-book usage and the likely long-term implications of these for libraries and their users. It will be particularly useful for anyone concerned about the accessibility of information and resources in the digital age, since several of the earlier chapters focus on the implications of the e-book format for the poorer classes of society (who may have limited access to computers and other devices) and for disabled users; however, it must be remembered that this is within the context of the United States, where legal and social aspects may be considerably different from those in the UK and elsewhere. As Ken Petri points out, in his chapter on accessibility issues, “the advance of technology virtually always outpaces a writer's attempt to report on it”, but this book provides a good overview of current thinking and practice. References are included for each chapter, and the book is indexed.
