A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Libraries, Patrons, and E-books, offers a glimpse at the current state of American libraries and finds them eager to lend e-books but struggling to do so, primarily because of budget limits and restrictions publishers place on e-book lending.

Of America’s 9,000 public library systems, 76 percent now offer e-books, up from 67 percent last year. But patrons are often unaware that libraries offer e-book lending — 62 percent of those surveyed said they didn’t know if their library lends e-books.

Twelve percent of e-book readers have tried borrowing digital books from a library, but indicate the process is cumbersome, with wait lists that can stretch for months, lack of availability for many titles, an inability to renew, and difficulty with the downloading process.

Fifty-six percent said they couldn’t find the particular e-book they wanted from their library, and 18 percent said their library’s e-books were incompatible with their e-reader.

Many patrons who borrow e-books from libraries report they don’t know how to return an e-book before it’s due, when it will simply disappear from their e-reader, and that lack of knowledge adds to wait list times. Some librarians are especially fond of e-books, however, because they never have to pester anyone about fines for overdue books.

It’s clear library patrons want to borrow e-books, and libraries want to lend them, but because e-book formats, e-readers, and agreements with publishers evolve rapidly, no one has figured out how to make it all work smoothly.

OLD SYSTEMS FOR NEW TECHNOLOGIES

In some ways, publishers artificially impose limits on e-book lending to create the same scarcity and demand that exists with printed books. According to the report, “In general, publishers’ e-book lending restrictions often attempt to mirror the logistics of print lending — for instance, only allowing an e-book to be lent out to one patron at a time through a ‘one book, one user’ arrangement.”

At the same time, cuts in library budgets in recent years and publishers’ restrictions on purchasing have made it impossible for libraries to acquire enough e-books to keep up with the demand. A report released last week by the American Library Association, “Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study 2011-2012,” found 56.7 percent of American libraries had reduced or flat operating budgets over the past year.

One librarian wrote in the Pew survey, “We boycott HarperCollins due to their use limitations. (Books must be repurchased after 26 checkouts.) We can only purchase one copy per title from Penguin (resulting in extremely long hold lists and disgruntled patrons). Random House has upped their prices to around $100 per copy, so we are only purchasing the top 10 bestsellers from this publisher. I fear what will happen in the next year.”

Some libraries simply can’t keep up with the rapid changes in technology due to time and budget limits on their staff. Some librarians might know their way around a Kindle or a Nook, but not an iPad. While better-funded library districts report offering e-reader training sessions and vouchers for librarians to purchase their own e-readers, many of the librarians who responded to the survey indicate their staff is more likely to be self-taught through their own use of personal tablets and e-readers than they are to receive formal training.

This mirrors how the general population is learning about e-reading. According to the report, “Many mentioned having a spouse, child, or friend who is more tech-savvy than them and serves as an inspiration or teacher.”

Several librarians indicated that there is one particular staffer who understands technology better than others and fulfills that go-ask-your-little-brother role, with less tech-comfortable librarians sending people to the resident tech guru with their questions.

Libraries’ acquisition of printed books was gradual, but many patrons expect the acquisition of e-books to be instant. Some of the surveyed e-book readers imagine a future library where every book ever published is available to patrons instantly, for free, with no wait lists or limits on checkout time.

But the ghosts of technologies past provide a warning for libraries that might rush to invest too many resources in one digital format. According to the report, some librarians “mentioned cutting increasingly obsolete resources, like collections of cassettes or VHS tapes, as well as databases that are rarely used.” Meanwhile, old-fashioned print books continue to circulate.

PUBLISHERS’ REVENUE

While librarians disagree with the publishers’ e-book policies, they seem to be working for the moment. A report from the Association of American Publishers released earlier this month showed that for the first time, American publishers are earning more revenue from e-books than hardback books. In the first quarter of 2012, e-books brought in $282.3 million, while hardbacks earned publishers $229.6 million. The revenues from paperback books still have a slight edge over those categories, but paperbacks are slipping, with earnings from adult trade paperbacks falling by 10.5 percent and adult mass-market paperbacks tumbling by 20.8 percent since last year. For publishers and writers, so far it seems the advent of e-books takes away as much as it gives.

The restrictions publishers place on library e-book lending are helping them maintain the delicate balance between what e-books are earning and what they are costing. Many of the people surveyed by the Pew Center indicate they find it much more convenient to simply purchase an e-book outright than to wait for it to become available at the library.

NOT YOUR MOTHER’S LIBRARIAN

The role of the librarian as someone eager to help patrons with their questions about the capitol of Peru or the state bird of Colorado has faded in recent years. One librarian told Pew, “Instead of print indexes or even online databases, many people just Google everything and if they find something ‘good enough,’ they don’t come to or contact the library for help.”

Many library users indicate that most of their interaction with libraries these days is via the computer, through which they either download e-books, sign up on wait lists, or request printed books which they then pick up on the hold shelf rather than visiting the library and lingering in the stacks.

But that doesn’t mean librarians have a lot of free time — on the contrary, they have become even busier answering patrons’ questions about technology. One librarian wrote, “It takes a long time to explain and walk patrons through the downloading process — about half an hour from start to finish most times — and we often feel rushed at the public assistance desk because there are often other demands on our time.”

Pew’s “Libraries, Patrons, and E-books” report makes it clear that Americans are more interested in e-books and eager to borrow them from libraries than ever before, but the expansion of the information superhighway has happened so rapidly for everyone involved — libraries, publishers and readers — that it is riddled with potholes.

Apparently, it will take a nation of little brothers to bring us all up to e-reading speed.

Jenny Shank is the author of the novel “The Ringer” (The Permanent Press, 2011), a finalist for the High Plains Book Award.

This post originally appeared on MediaShift.

PBS MediaShift covers the intersection of media and technology. Follow @PBSMediaShift for Twitter updates, or join us on Facebook.

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Print or digital? Adults grapple with which is the best way to read — not only for themselves, but especially when it comes to their kids. Whether or not parents prefer print books over interactive e-books for their kids, the question is, what’s actually better for them?

Depends on what you’re trying to achieve. According to a study of a small group of parents released today by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, kids age 3 to 6 remembered more narrative details — “What happened in the story?” — from print books than from enhanced e-books with multimedia features.

But when kids were asked one plot question for each story, (i.e., “Why did x do y?”), there was no difference between the print book readers and the enhanced e-book readers.

“I would definitely make the distinction that the platform affected recall instead of comprehension,” said Cynthia Chiong, the lead author of the survey conducted at New York Hall of Science’s Preschool Place.

The study, the first of its kind to qualify the difference between basic and enhanced e-readers versus print books, examined 32 pairs of parents and their 3–6-year-old children as they read a print book and an e-book together. Half of the pairs read a basic e-book and the other half read an enhanced e-book.

Researchers found that while the multimedia features of enhanced e-books grabbed children’s attention, those same features also distracted young readers and led more to “non-content related interactions.” Features like animation, sound effects, videos, and games made it more difficult for some parents to keep kids focused on reading and diminished kids’ recall of the text. Parents continually had to tell kids not to turn the page or not to touch the tablets, according to Chiong.

The implication? Parents and teachers should choose basic e-books like the Kindle or Nook over enhanced e-books, such as the iPad, if they want a more literacy-focused co-reading experience with children. Prompting kids with questions that relate to the text, labeling and naming objects, and encouraging kids to talk about the book’s content from their own perspective all elicit kids to be more verbal, and can lead to improved vocabulary and language development, the study states.

But if “engagement” is the objective, the issue gets murkier. When it came time to measuring “child-book” engagement, based on the child’s direct attention and touch, more kids showed higher levels of engagement for the e-books than the print books, though a majority were equally engaged by both book types. Children also physically interacted with the enhanced e-book more than when reading either the print or basic e-book.

“Kids loved the enhanced e-books,” Chiong said. “It was great to see the level of engagement, how much they were enjoying it — and that’s one of our goals as parents, is engaging kids. If this can do that, especially in kids who might not otherwise be interested, it’s perfect.”

Chiong added that this study focused on younger kids — questions and priorities will be different for measuring the differences for older readers.

PARENTS’ EXPERIENCE

Parents’ comments showed a wide range of reactions. Some parents appreciated the iPad’s effect on their young readers.

“They’re able to hear the words…It came alive. I don’t have to do the reading,” said the mother of a three-year old. “Not only that, they pay more attention to the iPad. Sound effects were an excellent idea — they like the books with sound effects.”

Another parent appreciated the e-books’ prompts. “Actually.. [I liked the e-book] because I don’t know what questions to ask sometimes and the iPad showed what to repeat and say,” said a mother of a five-year old boy.

NEXT STEPS

For this “quick study,” which researchers recognize is limited by the small number of those surveyed, the intent is to help guide more comprehensive research in the future.

“This whole explosion of e-books has been great, and we love seeing what’s happening with the innovation, but now it’s time to start thinking more purposefully and thoughtfully into what goes into the creation of an e-book,” Chiong said.

Researchers advise that e-book designers be discriminating about the types of features they add to enhanced e-books, “especially when those features do not directly relate to the story,” the study states. Parents should also be able to have more control over settings to features so they can tailor the reading experience to their own needs.

Researchers believe a similar study should be done with a larger and more representative sample of participants and books, and should examine what types, combinations, and placement of e-book features help or hinder learning and conversation, and should explore how different populations (e.g., lower income families, non-native English speaking families) use them.

Flickr:Paul Lowry

By Laurie Putnam

The public library hums. Readers peruse e-books and job seekers attend workshops. Teens organize poetry slams, and students work together on school assignments. Librarians plan programs, help researchers online, and digitize collections of all shapes and sizes. All around the world, today’s libraries are serving their communities in new and different ways.

But is that enough for tomorrow’s library?

We do need to promote modern, relevant services in our current libraries, says Rob Bruijnzeels, founder and rector of the Dutch LibrarySchool. For the long term, however, Bruijnzeels believes that libraries need more than modernizing: They need rethinking, and they need librarians who think differently.

“We can’t just refresh the library of the twentieth century anymore. There is so much more going on now,” says Bruijnzeels. “We think we need a new kind of public library, a new process for public libraries. We need something completely different. What it is, we don’t know for sure, but let’s have a try.”

To give us a collective try, Bruijnzeels started the LibrarySchool, a new university program designed to educate a new wave of librarians. It’s both an academic program and an incubator of ideas.

While no one knows quite what the library of the 21st century will be, the faculty and students at the LibrarySchool aren’t afraid to experiment. In times of radical change, they believe, old paradigms no longer apply. Rapid cultural, technological, and societal shifts are changing how people consume information and use libraries.

In the Netherlands, dramatic budget cuts have threatened the closure of one-third of the nation’s public libraries. And with a large percentage of librarians nearing retirement, a significant shift in the makeup of library staff is imminent. Many in the library community are looking for new ideas.

The LibrarySchool aims to cultivate those ideas. Several years in the making, shaped by an intensive pilot program that helped define the curriculum, the LibrarySchool opened in September 2011. A collaborative program of the Netherlands Open University and major Dutch public libraries, the LibrarySchool is supported by corporate sponsorships.

Dutch librarians are typically trained in undergraduate programs, and until now, no Dutch university offered a master’s degree that focused on public libraries. Offering a new opportunity for advanced study, the LibrarySchool is designed as a training ground for innovators. It’s a place where people who currently work in libraries can look at the broader context of culture, technology, and society, and see new roles for the library. A place where they can create and share ideas, try them out in their libraries, and encourage others to do the same.

Librarianship “used to be about building your collection, cataloging it, and making it accessible to people,” says Bruijnzeels. “Today those three things are completely different from when most library schools were designed. In our school we want to look for a new process, which is about imagination, technology, and participation. These days the public library might start with the books on the shelves and the e-books, but it’s really about content and context and meaning and sharing information, which are completely different processes from what we learned 25 to 30 years ago.”

RESHUFFLING OUR BRAINS

The LibrarySchool merges learning, working, and innovating in a new kind of university program. Coursework moves into the library, where experiments are tested, and the library infiltrates the classroom, as colleagues join discussions and ideas are debated. Guest speakers from other disciplines bring alternative perspectives. “School” becomes an open learning network.

Students bring assorted cultural and professional backgrounds, focusing a powerful mix of qualities, experiences, and skills on the future of libraries. The inaugural class is made up of nine students, young librarians entering the profession with fresh energy mingling with dedicated librarians, midcareer, who say, “We want to learn more and reshuffle our brains,” according to Bruijnzeels. They come from public libraries small and large across the Netherlands and Belgium, where they continue to work in professional positions while they participate in the LibrarySchool program part-time.

All begin with a required one-year certificate that addresses core themes:

• The library and culture, which examines the role of the public library as a cultural institution in an era of changing cultural values.
• The library and technology, which looks at opportunities to add value to learning, knowledge, and libraries through new technologies.
• The library and society, which explores the past, present, and future role of the library in a participatory society.
• The library and organization, which focuses on management and operational aspects of dynamic environments.

Courses are taught in Dutch, by Open University professors, through a distance learning system. After completing the certificate program, students may continue for two more years and earn their choice of several master’s degrees, depending on their specializations. Student research interests have led to the possibility of adding a PhD program as well.

Every two months, students, faculty, and guest speakers come together in Amsterdam to discuss the future of libraries. The sessions create a “free space” that gives students an opportunity to share what they’re learning and enhances coursework with guest lectures, workshops, and discussions.

“We always ask the big ‘Why?’ questions,” says Bruijnzeels. “Why is this important? What do you want to do with it in your professional life?” Students and faculty learn from one another. Both learn from guest experts from arts and other cultural institutions who share their own experience of adapting to societal change.

The biggest challenge, says Bruijnzeels, is to transfer knowledge and inspiration back into the working libraries rather than letting them rest within the student or the school. To this end, each student takes on an innovation project that can be explored at the LibrarySchool and developed in his or her own library. By working with two or three “study buddies” at their libraries, students are able to share their thinking and learning in the workplace. Study buddies, like LibrarySchool alumni, are also welcome to participate in free-space activities.

CREATING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION

The ultimate goal is to infuse today’s libraries with new ways of thinking. “We hope this library school will create real true core innovators for public libraries,” says Bert Mulder, curator of the LibrarySchool’s free space, in a recent appearance on the Dutch program This Week in Libraries. These are “people who are able to be change agents, people who are able to see long-term developments, and then take those and translate them into valid library solutions.” People who can help libraries create a culture of innovation. Sustainable innovation.

Bruijnzeels plans to enroll 15 students a year, and eventually to engage each of the 140 Dutch public libraries in some form of LibrarySchool activity. Within the next three years, he hopes to have a clear view of “the role of public libraries in this century based on what’s happening now, the impact that will have on the profile of the librarian, and what that means for the education of librarians.”

As the school models the qualities in aims to instill in its students—collaborative partnering, continuous learning and innovation, and active participation—that view will be a dynamic one. The learning will continue as libraries continue to evolve. “Once you are a student of the LibrarySchool,” says Bruijnzeels, “you are always a student of the LibrarySchool.”

Laurie L. Putnam is a California-based teacher, librarian, and communications consultant. She blogs at Next Libraries.

Flickr: Muffet

By Jenny Shank

Is it possible to personalize the gift of an e-book?

I asked Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer at the Boulder Book Store, if he had any ideas, and he was as stumped as I am.

“I’m not sure what the best way to personalize an e-book would be,” he said.

His store and many other independent bookstores sell Google e-books, which are

usually the same price as e-books available for Kindle, and can be used on multiple platforms. But you can’t use a store gift certificate to purchase them because buying the e-book is a transaction with Google, and Google doesn’t accept indie bookstore gift cards. Currently, there isn’t a way to give an e-book as a gift from most independent bookstores.

It is possible to give a Kindle e-book as a present from Amazon. According to Amazon’s FAQ on the subject, you don’t need to own a Kindle to give someone a Kindle e-book gift: “Kindle books can be given and received by anyone with an e-mail address.” You can schedule the date the e-book gift is delivered to the recipient, and if the recipient isn’t happy with your selection, he or she can exchange it for another.

As for Barnes & Noble’s Nook books, you can’t give someone a specific Nook book, but you cangive them a Barnes & Noble gift card to purchase Nook books, or you can lend a Nook book from one reader to another. Although you can give a friend specific songs from iTunes, that isn’t possible yet for iBooks — the only way to give an iBook is through an iTunes gift card or certificate. It’s all a little confusing, because each type of e-book and e-reader has its own rules. Last month, Open Road Media launched a website with instructions on how to give e-books from Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and the Sony Reader Store.

Still, these digital transactions via email feel a little chilly to me. One year I gave someone a subscription to Netflix, and almost a year later I received an email that said the person never used the credit that was about to expire, which made me feel like I had never given them a gift at all.

PRINT BOOKS IS STILL KING

I spoke with Cathy Langer, lead buyer at the Tattered Cover, who said, “I contend that even if people have e-readers, they want to give a physical book, because it’s so impersonal giving e-books. And this was actually proven with several customers I’ve helped.”

I told her that I am leaning toward giving actual books to friends and family that have e-readers, and she said that my thoughts on this subject are typical. “I’ve been predicting almost since last Christmas that I’m not afraid of the holiday season. People ordering off of Amazon has cut into our business to some extent, no matter what. But even though people are getting e-readers for Christmas and Hanukkah, when someone wants to give a gift of a book, they want to give the gift of a physical book. Even though there are e-readers in millions of households, the gift-giving vehicle is still the physical book.”

Langer gave some examples of how this dynamic has played out among customers at the Tattered Cover that she’s helped. “I had a customer who wanted two copies of ‘Ready Player One’ [by Ernest Cline], which is a futuristic, hip novel from Random House that was big this fall. He said, ‘I read it on my Kindle, and I loved it, so I want to give it as gifts.’”

It’s almost as if the e-book has become the lower-priced preview mechanism for readers who might then go onto buy the physical book for themselves or others.

And for kids, although there are some wonderful interactive e-book programs, printed books still are the rule. Langer said, “A couple days ago, there was a little girl — maybe 5 years old — traipsing through the store with her grandfather, and they were talking about a book. He said, ‘Well, we can get that for you on your Kindle,’ and she said, ‘No, Grandpa, I want a real book.’”

Langer said, “Giving books as gifts is a very strong, personal statement. It’s an object of love and affection and real meaning. It’s an object rather than just a commodity of words.”

I agree — for this year, I’m sticking with printed books for gifts. In future years, who knows? But as long as no one invents digital beer, there will always be some presents under the Christmas tree.

Jenny Shank is the is the author of the novel “The Ringer” (The Permanent Press, 2011), a finalist for the Reading the West Book Awards.

Part of this story was originally published by PBS MediaShift, covering the intersection of media and technology. Follow @PBSMediaShift for Twitter updates, or join us on Facebook

Kathryn

Though we keep hearing about a huge increase in sales of e-books, a recent survey shows that, for students, that needle has not really moved much.

The library e-book provider eBrary released some of the preliminary results from its 2011 Global Student E-Book Survey last week. Among its findings: that students’ e-book usage has not increased significantly in the past 3 years.

That’s contrary to other reports about consumers using e-books. Back in May, Amazon said that it was selling more e-books than print, ad the Association of American Publishers says that for the first half of the year, e-book sales are up 160% while hardcover and paperback sales were both down nearly 20%.

So why are students’ buying habits different? Why aren’t they buying more e-books?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that the books they need — textbooks at least — are not always available in digital format. Even if some titles are available, many students opt to buy all their books at the same time from the same location (whether that retailer is online or a traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore or a textbook rental company). As different e-readers and e-reader apps have access to different catalogs, there isn’t really a seamless shopping experience for digital textbooks.

It’s not as though students aren’t interested in e-books. According to the eBrary survey, “the vast majority of students would choose electronic over print if it were available and if better tools along with fewer restrictions were offered.” Those latter points are key: better tools and fewer restrictions. Despite some of the improvements to note-taking in textbook apps like Inkling and Kno, it’s still not quite as easy to mark up a digital text as it is a printed one. And oftentimes the content in these books is “locked down,” so students can’t share their notes or share their books with another.

That sharing aspect is important. Students want to be able to utilize social media as they do their reading and research, and according to those surveyed by eBrary, they want their textbooks integrated with social tools. Again, many apps are recognizing the importance of social reading, whether it’s shared highlighting via the Kindle or a dedicated e-reader or via a Web-based tool like Highlighter.

But students also share their textbooks because they are so incredibly expensive. And as the digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on e-books makes lending someone your copy difficult if not impossible, students are likely steering away from e-books because they simply don’t work for them — practically or economically. After all, there is little savings to be found in many digital textbooks. They cost roughly the same as print, but come without the ability to sell back a used copy at the end of the semester.

The slow adoption of digital textbooks by students doesn’t necessarily mean that textbooks will be the last bastion of print. But it does highlight the ways in which students’ needs aren’t being met yet by digital content providers. That means there’s still a huge opportunity here to reshape what the textbooks of the future look like. Openly licensed content, for example, could address students’ concerns about sharing. Better social tools could help meet their needs for social reading and learning. Open educational resources could provide free content, while an iTunes model of sorts — one that sold the “song” (or rather the chapter) rather than the “album” (the whole book) could save students money.

Students’ reluctance to move to digital textbooks should also be an indication that we have to make sure we’re building learning tools that meet the needs of learners. Despite all the promises about lighter backpacks, students’ purchasing habits here indicate that they’re making decisions about what works best for how they study.

Flickr: WilliaC

• National Geographic has unveiled a new education section of its website, with a great collection of maps, multimedia, teaching activities, and resources
• Amazon announced this week that it would be launching a Lending Library later this year, a deal that would let Kindle owners check out books from over 11,000 libraries. This brings Kindle to parity with other e-readers that libraries let their patrons use for e-book check-outs, and considering Kindle’s market share, may be a boon to schools and libraries looking to expand their e-book adoption.
• Open source robotics builders Willow Garage announced this week the release of TurtleBot, their first low-cost personal robot. Built with a Kinect sensor, a gyro, and a laptop, along with Willow Garage’s Robots Operating System, TurtleBot is aimed at hobbyists and developers.
• Academic publisher Flat World Knowledge announced the release of its MIYO (Make It Your Own) platform this week. Flat World Knowledge specializes in openly-licensed textbooks, and the MIYO platform will enable professors to build textbooks — moving or deleting chapters or sections, adding notes, exercises, and PDFs, inserting videos, and incorporating other openly licensed materials. The books are then “built,” and made available for students — either free online or in a low-cost print format.
• Learning management system giant Blackboard revealed this week that it has received “unsolicited, non-binding proposals” for acquisition. No word on who that buyer might be or whether Blackboard would actually sell, but it does seem to be taking the offers seriously, announcing that it has retained Barclays Capital as financial advisors to address the proposals. It’s also not clear what an acquisition would mean to the thousands of colleges and universities that are now Blackboard customers.
• Qwiki, a startup that claims to turn “information into experience” by transforming Wikipedia entries into robot narrated, photo slide-shows, launched an iPad app this week.
• Ed-tech entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley area: Mark your calendars for the San Francisco Startup Weekend Education, June 3-5. Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event in which participants build a web or mobile app over the course of the weekend. The event in June will be focused specifically on building educational apps, with over $5000 in prizes for the winning teams.