James LaRue

A Computers in Libraries conference got Jim Blanton thinking: ebooks were on the rise. Self-publishing was taking off. How could libraries turn the challenge into an opportunity?

This month, I visit with one of the first organizations to tackle one of the fundamental librarian concerns about self-publishing: quality.

SELF-e is the partnership between Library Journal and Charleston, SC's BiblioLabs. BiblioLab's product, Biblioboard, is a platform that seeks to bring (among other things), self-published works into the library ecosystem. I spoke recently with Hallie Rich, Cuyahoga County Public Library's Communications and External Relations Director, about the library's pilot project with the platform.

Serialized writing has a long history, and can be hugely popular. It is said that American fans of Charles Dickens, eager to get the latest chapter of "The Old Curiosity Shop," lined up at the docks of New York, shouting out to the crew of a ship that had not yet come to port, "Is little Nell dead?"

Over the past 30 years or so , there have been several waves of technological change in the library world. First was the replacement of the card-based catalog and circulation system with the integrated library system (ILS). Second was the replacement of paper journals with electronic databases. Third was the adoption of the PC. Fourth was the rise of the World Wide Web. Fifth was a sort of echo of the first, in which automation reached a little deeper into our processes, replacing manual checkin and checkout with RFID-based self-check and automated materials handling.