School Library Journal» amazon

Consider the Source: Changing on the Fly

Marc Aronson — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:30:20 +0000

Photo: Stockbyte

Fans of baseball, football, and basketball, you all have something in common: it’s easy for you to tell what team is on the field, which one is off of it, and when players are changing their roles from offense to defense. In baseball, of course, three outs and the team at-bat retreats into the dugout, picks up its mitts, and trots back onto the field. In football, there are many variations and tricks of the trade. For example, a “hurry-up” offense is designed to move so quickly that the defense doesn’t have time to substitute fresh players onto the field. But in general, the exchange of players in our nation’s major sports is a slow and stately process that’s based on principles that kids learn when they first begin playing a particular game. There’s one sport, though, that’s totally different from the others—and I suspect it has a lesson to teach those of us in library land.

Unlike other sports, in hockey, players “change on the fly.” That is, a coach signals a group of players to jump onto the ice even as the others are whizzing off—the exchange happens in the middle of a play, as the puck is speeding down the ice. Hockey is such an exhausting sport that players only last a few minutes playing at full tilt, so a coach is constantly deliberating over whom to put in while trying to outguess the other coach’s moves. It’s a speeded-up, live chess match on ice.

I’m put in mind of hockey because of some recent developments in digital publishing. We’ve long known that Overdrive offers libraries subscriptions, rather than full ownership of books. Now Amazon has gotten into the act, offering its Prime members (who pay an annual fee) an ebook subscription. It strikes me that collection development is similar to the easy ebb and flow of offense and defense that I first described. A librarian knows her collection, sees where she needs to add titles, and from time to time, weeds those titles that have outlived their usefulness. But subscriptions are more like hockey.

In the digital subscription world, a librarian isn’t expecting her collection to remain the same for any length of time. She subscribes according to her current needs, knowing that the materials she has made available to today’s patrons may significantly change in the near future. For instance, she wants the latest and greatest of, say, news and financial databases. But in a subscription model, the constant churning and turnover isn’t just a matter of adhering to the latest dateline. A librarian may gain, or lose, an entire chunk of her collection as her subscription funding comes and goes, or as publishers’ digital policies change, or as patrons’ favorite digital devices shift.

What if we embrace a library model that’s part baseball and part hockey? What would such an arrangement look like? Print books, and some databases, would move in and out of the library at a leisurely pace, similar to ballplayers taking and leaving the field between innings. But digital subscriptions would constantly change on the fly: with new materials in, the old out, and the librarian playing the role of a highly tactical hockey coach, constantly matching ever-changing needs to ever-evolving resources. If that’s the case, the question isn’t “What do you own?” it’s “What do you need this very second?”

I can imagine a two-sport library, but there’s one caution. As you hockey fans well know, there’s one thing that can stop the rapid change of lines: when the game itself stops. The NHL and its players spent much of 2012 embroiled in a battle over money, and as a result, the players lost more than half of the current season. The one real danger in a subscription model is that it could break down totally and publishers could turn to some completely different plan. Well, if that happens, then librarian-coaches will just have to change partners and dance—on the fly.

Ebooks 2013: New leasing models, cheaper devices, more content

Christopher Harris — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:00:48 +0000

It was a bit of a roller coaster for libraries and ebooks in 2012. Penguin was out—terminating its contract with OverDrive, the main supplier of ebooks to libraries, in February—and then the publisher was back in October, but only allowing library loans of its ebooks through 3M’s Cloud Library service.

In the tablet market, the push to unseat the iPad had competitors slapping an HD tag on every supersize device they produced, while Apple went small, releasing its seven-inch iPad Mini in October.

Nothing small about ebook prices for libraries, with Random House tripling prices for that market, with $28 titles ratcheted to $84, and Hachette doubling prices on their backlisted titles. Amazon finally devised a school model—but using it as intended violates their terms of service.

So what’s in store for 2013? I see three key areas: changing ebook business models, access to more content, and affordable new hardware. The first two points are strongly linked. By exploring new business models, we could access collections of resources, which have been previously unavailable to schools. To make this work, we have to find ways to overcome the roadblocks to ebook lending experienced by public libraries.

School libraries, I believe, will be the coming focal point for ebook licensing. We have strong relationships with our K–12 publishing partners, but now we must reach out to the trade houses. As the print market weakens, the time is right for schools to present a new business proposal.

The fact is, the big trade houses aren’t very keen on “selling” ebooks to libraries. To justify its $84 ebooks, Random House implied that libraries owned the titles, but applied so many restrictions that ownership was effectively obviated by all the fine print.

So let’s give them another option. Rather than seeking to own ebooks, school libraries should instead seek more favorable deals in a short-term lease market. Support classroom instruction with two-month book rentals, or license titles for three-year terms to avoid locking the school into endless recycling of the same novels.

If publishers are concerned about the impact on consumer sales, we can point out that these ebooks are for instructional use and not pleasure reading. By writing licenses that restrict ebook use in classroom settings, we’re giving up some access but opening up a huge new world of content. Besides, we can always buy print books for independent reading.

Finally, 2013 should be an exciting year for hardware. By year’s end, I expect we’ll see sub-$100 tablets, not knock-off brands, but fully supported devices akin to the Kindle and Nook. We might also see color digital ink readers with better support for illustrated books. But the main hardware issue will be accessibility. Two high-profile lawsuits in 2012 established that schools and libraries purchasing ebook readers must buy accessible devices. Currently, none of the E-Ink based devices (Kindle Paperwhite or Nook Simple Touch, for example) are accessible, according to ADA definitions. Make sure your district considers accessibility if it’s planning to buy mobile computing and reading devices this year.

Christopher Harris (infomancy@gmail.com) is coordinator of the school library system of the Genesee Valley (NY) Educational Partnership.

National Federation of the Blind to Take Protest to Amazon, Denouncing School Kindle Use as Discriminatory to Blind Students

The Digital Shift — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:44:28 +0000

For years, representatives from the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) have been urging Amazon representatives to make their Kindle ereaders accessible to people who are blind and have low vision. Frustrated by what they say is an unacceptable response by Amazon and galvanized by the retail giant’s push for Kindle ebooks adoption by schools, NFB officials will protest outside Amazon’s Seattle headquarters on December 12 at 11:00 am. At issue is the fact that while blind students can listen to Kindle content with the devices’ text-to-speech technology, Kindles don’t enable them to perform research functions on their own while reading, like checking spelling and punctuation, highlighting passages, and finding things in the dictionary, all of which are available to sighted students using Kindles, says NFB spokesperson Chris Danielsen. “Amazon has repeatedly demonstrated utter indifference to the recommendations of blind Americans for full accessibility of its Kindle ebooks and failed to follow the best practices of other e-book providers,” NFB president Marc Maurer said in a statement released to press and posted on the NFB site. “Blind Americans will not tolerate this behavior any longer. While we urge Amazon to correct the many obvious deficiencies in its implementation of accessibility and remain willing to work with the company to help it do so, we will oppose the integration of these products into America’s classrooms until Amazon addresses these deficiencies. Putting inaccessible technology in the classroom not only discriminates against blind students and segregates them from their peers, but also violates the law.” Amazon makes Kindle content available only to its own proprietary text-to-speech engine, which does not include basic technology for blind readers available elsewhere, according to Danielsen. While the Kindle Keyboard 3G provides voice guides, allowing blind people to access their menus, that’s not enough, according to Danielsen. “It doesn’t necessarily give you access to all the options,” he says, even though this is a slight improvement over earlier Kindle models, which required a sighted person to activate text-to-speech functions that blind readers could use, he says. Currently, “If you want to read a book straight from beginning to end, then using the Kindle’s text-to-speech will work for you,” says Danielsen. “But that’s not how you read in school. How you read in school, particularly with a textbook, is that the teacher says, ‘look at page so-and-so.’ A blind person has no way of controlling that with the Kindle ebooks, though sighted students do.” Other ereader devices, including Apple products, provide tools that blind students can use for these functions, according to Danielsen. As schools race to select ereader models for classroom use, “We do not accept the idea that you let some students use Kindle ebook and you let a blind student use something else,” Danielsen explained. “That is segregating the blind students, using a ‘separate but equal’ philosophy that we don’t accept.” Amazon did not respond to a call and email request for comment from SLJ. Danielsen says that blind people generally use screen-reading software like Jaws for Windows and Window-Eyes that “take any document on a computer—an email or word document, read it to a blind person, and allow a blind person to control how it’s read,” he explained. “If you’re advancing through a document you can stop at a word by pushing the keyboard. The software speaks to you.” Since many blind people touch type, Danielsen says, this kind of system works smoothly. Apple’s VoiceOver app provides the same options for Apple products, Danielsen adds. “The difference is that it can be controlled by gestures as opposed to the keyboard. That works for us.” Screen reader technology for the blind can often communicate with devices that create braille displays, and the Kindle does not offer that option, he says. The NFB site offers an overview of its push to make ebooks available to the blind, along with information on a letter-writing and video campaign to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and template letters for blind children and their parents to use when writing Bezos. After Amazon introduced its text-to-speech function in 2009 with the Kindle 2, the company faced pressure from the Authors Guild which claimed that the read-aloud feature was a copyright infringement. The guild demanded that authors and publishers be able to block this feature, and Amazon relented, allowing them to do so on a title-by-title basis. “We became involved and took Amazon’s side,” says Danielsen. “We were hoping that being positive about what Amazon had done would lead them to incorporate more accessibility features.” The NFB also filed suit against Arizona State University in 2009 for adopting the Kindle DX, claiming that its menus could not be used by blind students. In January of 2010, four universities agreed not to use the Kindle DX until it was made accessible for blind students. That summer, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education released an open letter stating that it was unacceptable for colleges and universities to adopt ereaders that blind students could not use. The cost of implementing these functions should not be an issue for Amazon, Danielsen maintains. “Other people have done this without increasing the cost of their products,” he says. At the protest, he says, “We will directly interface with Amazon and the public and we are going to inform the public that Amazon is not making ebooks accessible to blind children and hopefully that will have an impact.”

Is Amazon Whispercast Enough?: Doubts Remain on Kindle’s Adoption by Schools

Lauren Barack — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:06:06 +0000

In a move to lure more school librarians to the Kindle platform, Amazon has launched a new free service, Whispercast, intended to streamline management of multiple ereaders from a central online point. The service promises to control Kindles from a single access account by organizing users into groups, pushing content to Kindles and other devices from laptops to iPads, and tracking purchases. It also enables registration and greater control over ereaders, such as turning off Internet access. Amazon’s previous set-up—managing each Kindle individually—was a “bee in the school library bonnet,” says Travis Jonker, an elementary school librarian at Wayland Union Schools in Holland, MI, who thinks the new policy could encourage investment in Kindles by schools. “This appears to be a step in the right direction in terms of efficiently managing a slew of ereaders in a school library setting,” says Jonker, who wrote about setting up an ereader program at his school in the SLJ cover story “Travis’s Excellent Adventure.” But troubling questions remain, as Whispercast only addresses some issues that have plagued schools and institutions since Kindles were first introduced. Amazon declined to return multiple emails and calls from SLJ with queries from school librarians and educational experts about how Whispercast will ease those concerns. Christopher Harris, the coordinator of the school library system for the Genesee Valley (NY) Educational Partnership and SLJ columnist, notes that Amazon’s Kindle Store Terms of Use dated Sept 6, 2012, does not refer specifically to educational use, stating instead that licensed content from Amazon is “solely for your personal, non-commercial use.” “Before I could in any way endorse the use of Kindles in libraries, I would want to see a written confirmation from Amazon that this is an allowed use,” Harris says by email. “Barnes & Noble provides an education-specific statement of use. Why won’t Amazon?” Jonker also wonders if school libraries will be able to enjoy simultaneous access, such as purchasing one ebook and sending it to multiple Kindles. Harris adds that the Kindle Education team told librarians that they could buy one book and push it to six Kindles, but Amazon won’t put that in writing. That, plus Amazon’s promise to terminate anyone who violates their terms of service, is concerning for educators considering the platform, he believes. “Given the ambiguity of these statements, and the lack of updated terms to explicitly address school/library use, the termination section is quite worrisome: “Amazon may immediately revoke your access to the Kindle Store and the Kindle Content without refund of any fees,” writes Harris. Kindles face strong competition from other devices, including Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iPad, Google’s Nexus 7, as well as other low-cost tablets, such as a next-generation iPad expected to be announced this week. However Whispercast’s ability to streamline a librarian’s efforts to run a slew of devices could give Amazon an edge. “Central management has the ability to level the playing field and keep the Kindle competitive with other tablet and ereader devices on the market,” says Lisa Perez, network library coordinator, Chicago Public Schools Dept. of Libraries by email. “Whispercast has the potential to keep them competitive in the K–12 market, especially when it supports bring-your-own-device, an attractive feature in some districts.”

Kindle for iPad Now Supports Children’s Books, Graphic Novels

Debra Lau Whelan — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:33:46 +0000

Amazon’s iPad and Cloud Reader apps now support more than 1,000 children’s books, comic books, and graphic novels in full color.

Titles include Ian Falconer’s Olivia (Atheneum, 2000), Donald Crews’s Freight Train (Greenwillow, 1993), the popular “Sesame Street” and “Curious George” series, Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” series, and comics featuring DC superheroes such as Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern. There’s also 40 years of Doonesbury comics available and eight picture books from Amazon Publishing priced at $1.99.

The books have zoomable text for easy reading on any screen, and graphic novels are viewed by panels.

“Children’s books come to life with brilliant images, fixed layouts, and Kindle Text Pop-Up for supported titles to magnify text for easy reading on any size screen,” reads Amazon’s description. “Comics and graphic novels are presented in Kindle Panel View for supported titles, showcasing the artwork in a panel by panel experience that reads as the author intended.” These books were previously only available to Kindle Fire and Android users.

Children’s books, comics, and graphic novels first debuted on the Kindle platform late last year, with the launch of the Kindle Fire touchscreen tablet and its color display. This latest update makes all this content available on the iPad. The free updated iOS software is now available on the App Store as a 19.9-megabyte download that requires iOS 4.2 or later.

To purchase the newly available content, users must visit the Amazon website and download it through their account in the Kindle for iOS app.

Amazon Offers Harry Potter for Free Through Lending Library

Lauren Barack — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:58:45 +0000

Potter fans can download all seven books in the J.K. Rowling series starting June 19, following Amazon’s deal with Pottermore to make the titles available through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

The Lending Library, offered only in the U.S. and for free to Amazon Prime members, lets readers download one title each month—with no due date. While public and school library patrons must sometimes wait for popular titles to become available, Amazon pointed out in a statement that under the deal “there are no limits on how many people can simultaneously borrow the same title—so readers never have to wait in line for the book they want.”