The Kindle and Libraries
Libraries have had an ambivalent relationship with the Kindle pretty much since the thing’s debut in 2007. From the beginning it received accolades for being easy to use, offering a reading experience as comfortable and intuitive as print, which is on my personal best-practices list for e-books. But the two major criticisms leveled at the device at the time were massive issues for libraries: the cost of both acquiring the device and using it (Amazon took a fair amount of heat for charging for access to content that was free to access from other devices), and the heavy-duty DRM attached to its content. The proprietary format dictated that Kindle books could not be read on other devices (though the Kindle app, which can be installed on personal computers and portable devices such as your favorite iThing, mitigates this), and you can’t trade, give away, or resell your Kindle e-book. That’s because you don’t own it in the first place: as is the case with most e-content that libraries deal with, Kindle books are licensed, not sold. The misunderstanding of this in the consumer marketplace led to some more bad press for Amazon. Add to this the lack of clarity over whether a library could buy a Kindle device, load it up with books, and lend that, and you’ve had a situation where the Kindle has largely bypassed libraries, to librarians’ consternation however much we may like Kindles personally.
Well, all that’s old news. Particularly with Amazon’s recent announcement that library lending for the Kindle, via the Overdrive media service, will be available later this year. Personally I do most of my e-book reading on my iPad, which has multiple applications installed for the purpose since the Kindle app can’t handle the epub format in which most Overdrive books are available. Overdrive primarily serves public libraries; with this move, one wonders if they will expand their services to academic libraries as well.
If not, this development will have less direct effect on my professional life than on my personal one. For academic libraries that have chosen to buy Kindles and load ‘em up for checkout, it may change nothing; since I’ve seen relatively few students running around with Kindles themselves, there’s also some question as to whether there’s any point in my library pursuing this at all, at least for the moment. It’s doubtful that the kinds of books I buy for my collection will be available through Overdrive, even if Kindle editions exist.
But maybe that doesn’t matter, since it seems that students don’t especially like doing course reading on Kindles anyway. It makes me wonder whether anyone is researching how academics, students and faculty alike, read and use texts, and whether and when an e-book interface will ever exist tailored to their particular habits. When I read for scholarly purposes, I do so in a qualitatively different way than when I read for pleasure. For the latter, the Kindle is a godsend. For the former…well, I’m still waiting.
