Well What About Digital Books?

After reading Callie's discussion of the digital book trend, I thought I would add my two cents. The questions in my mind are:

1) Are digital books a disruptive technology?
2) Do digital books make sense for Library Build's school libraries?

I think that question #1 is a very difficult question to answer. Two recent examples of disruptive technologies that come to mind are the replacement of film photography with digital photography and the replacement of CDs and DVDs by digital downloads. Both of these examples, as well as many other examples of disruptive technologies, have a few features in common. One is cost. The replacement technology's cost is substantially less than the technology being replaced once the cost curve has come down and the disruptive technology has matured a bit (Is this happening to solar energy right now?). Another feature in common among disruptive technologies is the high adoption rate with the exception of specialists. The disruptive technology goes through the usual stages of being adopted by innovators, then early adopters, early majority, late majority and finally laggards. By the end of this cycle all but specialists have taken up the new technology (think of music enthusiasts who still enjoy vinyl because of its unique characteristics or serious amateur and professional photographers who still use large format film due to the high quality images it is capable of producing). So will Kindles, E-Readers, Mini Netbooks and the like replace physical books? Well, the cost of these devices is coming down and it seems likely that many people are open to this technology. It definitely seems though that there will always be a sizable number of "specialists" who will prefer traditional bound books for aesthetic and other reasons.

There have been some recent articles regarding E-books, primarily focusing on digital borrowing rights and competition with the traditional publishing industry establishment. For instance, the NYT reported last year that the NY public library has about 18,000 digital books and they now devote about 1% of their annual book purchasing budget toward E-book purchases. But several publishers are reluctant. Some of the main publishing houses have refused to sell E-books to libraries for fear of eating into sales. You can read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/books/15libraries.html

Additionally, I speculate that publishers fear that the E-book format will allow many authors to self publish. Without the need to actually print and distribute the book, authors only have to focus on editing and marketing, two tasks that don't necessarily require the traditional publishing industry.

As for my second question, do digital books make sense for Library Build, the answer, at least for now, is a firm, "No!". Among other reasons, digital books require expensive readers (which require maintenance) and thus far digital copyright and borrowing privileges have not been sorted out. What may make sense for a suburban high school district that already has a laptop program (think Lower Merion) may not make sense in elementary schools in Philadelphia where schools receive only about half the funding per student as their suburban counterparts and where our focus is on students who are not yet in high school. This certainly does not mean that kids in Philadelphia don't deserve the luxuries that some suburban kids receive (regardless of what one thinks about the value of a laptop program) - quite the contrary - I argue that if we believe that every woman/man is created equal, then shouldn't every kid in the United States get the same school learning resources and thereby chance to succeed in life? Unfortunately, Philadelphia does not, and for the foreseeable future, will not have the funds to implement a laptop program or purchase E-readers. Nor do I think that a laptop program (in Philly or the suburbs) is appropriate for elementary and middle school kids (do we really want or need our 5-year-olds addicted to the internet or middle school kids surfing the internet in the middle of class?). The best way to spend nonprofit and precious school district resources is not on laptops so that elementary school kids can have E-books. We must put resources into traditional libraries to serve elementary and middle school students. We must give them access to the resources they need in order to learn and be able to achieve at the same level as their peers in Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties.

There is a lot of potential for digital books to both eat into the traditional market for paperbacks and to enable and enhance the learning process. This does not mean that this is the right solution for Library Build. In the meantime, however, it will be an interesting trend to watch. We will certainly be keeping an eye on it and constantly re-evaluating our position as times change.