Top ALA Officers Meet in New York with Head of AAP To Discuss Ebooks
By Michael Kelley Sep 20, 2011The new president of the American Library Association and ALA's executive director had a luncheon meeting in New York on September 15 with the CEO of the Association of American Publishers to air their views on ebooks and other digital materials.
A bit of airline serendipity also allowed the ALA officials to have a brief sitdown with the library marketing people from many of the top publishers.
"We wanted to open a dialog with AAP at the highest level about some of the issues that have been coming up, particularly in relation to ebooks and digital content," said ALA President Molly Raphael. "We want ...to ...articulate what's important to libraries," she said.
Raphael and ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels met for about 90 minutes with Tom Allen, AAP's president and CEO at AAP's office on Fifth Avenue. Alan Inouye, director of the ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy, was also present.
"This was really a chance for Molly and me to get to know each other," Allen said. "She and I agree that it's just very helpful to talk to each other," he said. "There are many issues that librarians have with publishers that are really commercial issues; the different houses have different beliefs or activities or arrangements, but it's...helpful to get to know Molly."
The meeting was arranged by Fiels, Allen said, whom he has met with in the past.
"It was an initial meeting after Harper Collins [put in place the 26-limit circulation cap on ebooks] and some other issues to begin talking with them about how we can work together, helping them to understand what we are looking for as librarians," Fiels said. "I think it was very productive and we have some clear areas of mutual interest. I think they were very receptive to what we had to say," he said.
"Part of it is we want to engage in dialog about this with the hope that we can move to a place that takes into consideration what's important to libraries [while] at the same time recognizing that publishers need to make money to stay in business," Raphael said.
ALA has hired Stanley Besen, a nationally recognized expert in the economics of intellectual property rights, to prepare a report by December on various e-book business models and their benefits and drawbacks.
Raphael said she brought up the issue of different pricing or lending strategies, noting that the HarperCollins model might work for some whereas other libraries might prefer to have the option to actually buy an ebook file, rather than license access, and manage the digital rights on their own.
"I understand the great concern publishers have about pirating of materials when its digital, and we made it very clear that we are right with them on that, that we care deeply about digital rights management," Raphael said.
Fiels and Raphael were on their way to Denver to attend the REFORMA conference held September 15-18, where both made opening remarks. However, their flight was delayed, which meant they had some extra time in the AAP office to participate in a regularly scheduled meeting of the AAP Trade Libraries Committee, which brings together the directors of library marketing from the top publishers.
Representatives from Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin, Random House, Macmillan, and several others were present.
"They were very pleased to have us there," Raphael said. "We just said we are trying to open the door for conversation and recognize that we would all be better off if we can figure out how to navigate digital content."
Raphael said that she and Fiels plan to follow up with publisher meetings.
"We would like to encourage them to think about how libraries are good for them," she said.
