Karen,

The others who have responded while I was off, you know, doing stuff, have done a much better job of answering your question than I would have. I would have said something glib like "almost all ways, with respect to open-access digital materials".

There's a shift in library mindset that has to occur along with the transition from print to digital. The clearest example that I've seen is the typical presentation of pretend-its-print out-of-copyright material. A library will have purchased PIP access to an annotated edition of a Shakespeare play, or a new translation of Crime and Punishment. But the public domain versions of these works (which are perfectly good) don't exist in the catalog. A patron looking for ebook versions of these works will then frequently be denied access because another patron has already checked out the licensed version.

That can't be justified by any vision for libraries that I can think of. It can't be justified because it's hard or time consuming, or because there are a flood of PD Crime and Punishments clamoring for attention. It's just a result of unthinking and we-haven't-done-that-before.

It's my hope that there are a number of not-so-hard problems around this situation that people on this list have the tools to solve.

Eric


On May 19, 2011, at 1:30 AM, Karen Coyle wrote:

> Quoting Eric Hellman <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
>> Exactly. I apologize if my comment was perceived as coy, but I've chosen to invest in the possibility that Creative Commons licensing is a viable way forward for libraries, authors, readers, etc. Here's a link the last of a 5 part series on open-access ebooks. I hope it inspires work in the code4lib community to make libraries more friendly to free stuff.
> 
> Eric,
> 
> In what ways do you think that libraries today are not friendly to free stuff?
> 
> kc
> 
>> 
>> http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-access-ebooks-part-5-changing.html
>> 
>> On May 18, 2011, at 7:20 PM, David Friggens wrote:
>> 
>>>>> Some ebooks, in fact some of the greatest ever written, already cost less
>>>>> than razor blades.
>>> 
>>>> Do you mean ones not under copyright?
>>> 
>>> Those, plus Creative Commons etc.
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Karen Coyle
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