Can libraries deliver and market eBook services?

Yeah, e-books are great — but libraries are in a tough spot. [Laura Hazard Owen Jun] New reports from the American Libraries Association and Pew Internet and American Life Project reveal that despite the increasing number of e-books available to library patrons, libraries themselves face big challenges in weathering the transition.

Some findings from the reports:

1. More digital demand, less funding -- Over 75 percent of libraries now offer e-books. 39% lend out e-readers. Libraries are also creating mobile versions of their websites (14 percent) and releasing smartphone apps (7 percent).
2. Pew reports that 12 percent of Americans ages 16 and older who read e-books have borrowed an e-book from a library in the past year.
3. More than 40 percent of states have reported decreased public library funding for three years in a row.
4. Sixty-two percent weren’t sure if they could borrow e-books from their library. In addition, 48 percent of e-reader owners (Kindles and Nooks) didn’t know if their library lends e-books, and 47 percent of people who read an e-book in the past year didn’t know.
5. Libraries are already struggling to keep up with the demand from patrons who do know about their e-books.
6. Librarians spend more time providing tech support

Pew says librarians are “anxious about the new set of demands on them." A “notable portion” say they are “self-taught techies” in the absence of serious staff training. This group of library users asks for lots of help with their devices, from plugging them in to turning them on to trying to make them interface with the e-book portion of the library website.” Browsing libraries’ e-book offerings is difficult. “I will sometimes go to Amazon to find titles I might like, then search them in OverDrive, since Amazon’s interface is so much more reader friendly.” One librarian called the process of checking out an e-book from a library and then downloading it onto a device “a cumbersome, nonsensical, multi-part process in which we lose too many people along the way.”

Publishers don’t make enough e-books available -- most limit e-book borrowing in some way. "the major obstacle is the lack of publishers and titles in OverDrive. “Libraries cannot lend what they cannot obtain.” Companies like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple should support local libraries not just because they’re good for communities but because they introduce patrons to new technologies and help them become paying customers. In fact, Pew finds that library card holders read more books in general, own more technology and are more likely to say they plan to purchase an e-reader or a tablet. In addition, most e-book readers prefer to buy their e-books rather than borrowing them (61 percent) and they use libraries as a place to discover new books.

So as libraries face the challenge of providing tech support and helping patrons use their new e-readers, retailers could also play a bigger role by providing more instructions, information and tech support to library patrons. Perhaps they could even take the lead in running library workshops on how to use the new technologies.

Vince Writes: Libraries face several challenges, from Publisher intransigence and a lack of a clear marketing strategy, to the technical issues which inhibit a straightforward service delivery.