Internet Archive Tests New Ebook Lending Waters: In-Library, and License-Free
By David Rapp Mar 2, 2011As evidenced by the recent commotion over HarperCollins's revision of ebook licensing terms, libraries and publishers have yet to find a lending model amenable to all the players. Just before the torrent of reaction to that story, however, the Internet Archive (IA) quietly laid two pieces of what may be the foundation for a lending model that librarians, at least, will find more hospitable.
As part of its online Open Library project, the IA announced last week a new collection of some 85,000 ebooks—including many in-copyright but out-of-print titles—for exclusive lending among a "virtual consortium" of 150 public and academic libraries.
IA founder Brewster Kahle and director Peter Brantley also told LJ that small independent publishers Cursor, OR Books, and Smashwords will donate ebooks license-free to the Open Library for lending to all Open Library members. With this venture, IA hopes to establish a "first-sale precedent" for e-lending, according to Brantley.
In-library lending
One-hundred and fifty library branches in the United States and Canada have donated scans of some 85,000 books to the Open Library (which supplied digitization services for some titles). Branches from large systems, including the Boston Public Library (BPL) and the San Francisco Public Library, are taking part alongside branches from smaller systems, such as the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN.
The Open Library will host the ebooks, which will only be available for download to patrons physically present at the branches who donated books as part in the program (the branches will provide IA with IP-address ranges). When Faber CEO Stephen Page suggested a similar in-library ebook lending arrangement at a library conference in England last October, it sparked controversy around the library world.
Once the patron checks out an ebook, he or she may read the ebook on a browser or compatible device (including most ereaders, with the notable exception of Amazon's Kindle) elsewhere for the term of the loan.
As with other Open Library lendable ebooks, patrons will be able to borrow up to five ebooks for up to two weeks. They may then read them on a browser with IA's BookReader application, or download a PDF or EPUB version and read them using Adobe Digital Editions software.
Some of the books on offer in the in-library program are intriguing, such as the once-famous but now out-of-print 1973 book President Nixon's Psychiatric Profile by Eli S. Chesen, while others are more obscure and specialized—for example, BPL provided several dry tomes on the genealogy of prominent Boston families—but Brantley told LJ that their availability through the Open Library makes it more likely that they will be checked out.
The individual libraries, not IA, determine lending rights for in-copyright works, and the libraries choose what books they wish to include, according to Brantley.
IA's previous venture into e-lending, announced last June, made approximately 200 in-copyright and out-of-print ebook titles, donated from BPL and other institutions, available for loan to all Open Library members. (The Open Library also has some 70,000 OverDrive links in its catalog, which members can use to download books from the digital collections of their local library.)
License-free ebook lending
Independent publishers Cursor and OR Books have also donated several license-free ebooks to the Open Library for e-lending, and a third publisher, Smashwords, has plans to donate ebooks as well. All are available for lending to Open Library members, using the same well-known serial one user/one lend model.
Among the publisher-donated books currently available are Lynne Tillman's 1992 novel Cast in Doubt from Cursor imprint Red Lemonade, and Douglas Rushkoff's Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age (2010) from OR Books (see LJ's recent interview with Rushkoff). More publisher-donated ebooks are forthcoming, including several from ebook publisher Smashwords.
Cursor head Richard Eoin Nash told LJ that exposure for his authors helped motivate the ebook donation. "I'm furiously relentless about maximizing visibility for my authors, generally finding that audience creation is a far greater challenge than monetization," he said.
IA's Brantley told LJ that he has been speaking with Smashwords CEO Mark Coker about the possibility of also making Smashwords books part of the in-library lending program in the future, but for now the publishers' ebooks are available only as part the main Open Library collection.
Both Kahle and Brantley indicated that they wanted to encourage a model in which publisher sell ebooks outright to libraries, instead of licensing them. "Let's get the title paid for, and the publisher and author can move on to the next one," Kahle said. "That's how books have always worked." Kahle also pointed out that such a model puts libraries in charge of the preservation of their collections, as opposed to publishers.
Brantley said that IA is interested in dealing with more publishers that are willing to donate or sell license-free ebooks for lending. "We are trying to establish a digital first-sale precedent here," he told LJ.
