eBook Options for Libraries

Viable ebook options either provide libraries with ownership privileges or are free of digital rights management (DRM) software, ideally both. DRM is an inherently flawed technology that can be replaced either by creating better software or, more likely, by developing models that enable libraries to acquire ebooks and authors, editors, and others involved in publishing to get paid for their work. This is a draft and an outline. The material on this page will soon be published as a narrative.

Options (columns are sortable)

Name	Ownership	DRM-free	Copyright/License	Source	Distribution	Format	Cost	Examples
Open Library	Yes	No	Fair Use/First Sale	Print-based books digitized by Open Library and converted to eBooks. Open Library has also bought ebooks directly from a few publishers.	Hosted by Open Library: a set of over 200,000 ebooks is available for “in library” lending, and a set of 10,000 is available for “open lending”	ePub, PDF, in-browser	Free	Over 1,000 participating libraries
Unglue.it	Yes	Yes	Creative Commons	Rightsholders are paid to relicense their work	Any digital format	Any	Initially crowdsourced in order to meet rightsholder’s asking price, then free to anyone	Oral Literature in Africa by Ruth A. Finnegan
Sneakernet Model	Yes	Yes	Fair Use/First Sale	Any eBook distributor or “DIY”	Read-only USB drives	Any	Price of eBook and price of USB drive	None yet, but presently viable
Steampunk Model	Yes	Yes	Fair Use/First Sale	Digital-only texts purchased by libraries and printed as paper-based books	Standard model used currently for paper-based books	Paper	Price of eBook and price of printing	None yet, but presently viable
DIY Model	Yes	Depends on Distribution and Format	Fair Use/First Sale	Paper-based texts purchased and digitized by libraries, then circulated only in digital format (purchasing a single copy and circulating it in two or more formats would violate copyright)	DRM-enabled hosting software or read-only USB drives	Any	Price of paper-based book, price of digitization, and price of distribution method	None yet, but presently viable
Open Source/DRM Hybrid Model	Yes	Both	Common Understanding	Any eBook distributor or “DIY”	Library-hosted, open source (MySQL/VuFind) and DRM-enabled commercial (Adobe Content Server) software	ePub, PDF, in-browser (ebooks hosted via Adobe Content Server are not available on Kindle)	eBooks (25–45% publisher discounts); Adobe Content Server ($10,000 one-time license; $1,500 annual maintenance; 8 cents per checkout); Public Domain/ Creative Commons/ Open Source (Free)	Douglas County (Colorado) Libraries and the MARMOT Library Consortia
Library License	Yes	Depends on Distribution and Format	To be determined	Rightsholders agree to relicense their work	To be determined	Any	To be determined	Not yet viable
Unlimited Content License Model	Yes	Yes	AADL Unlimited Use, Fixed Term Content License	Rightsholder is paid to provide files, which are accessed without limits or returns by authenticated cardholders	Library-hosted, open source software (SOPAC/Drupal)	Any, including streaming or downloaded audio and video, plus PDF and ePub	Negotiated with rightsholder	Magnatune at Ann Arbor District Public Library
State Redistribution Model	No	Yes	Author retains copyright, but file sharing is legalized	Authors paid based on the cube root of popularity of their publications	Any. Sharing would be legal, and widespread sharing would be in the author's best interest	Any	Authors or publishers can charge what they wish for copies obtained directly from them	Not yet viable (requires government intervention)
Portability Model	Yes	No	Fair Use/First Sale	Any eBook distributor (State Library of Kansas obtained permission from publishers to transfer copies between hosting vendors)	Vendor-hosted, DRM-enabled software (currently Adobe Content Server)	All but PC, Nook, and Kindle	Negotiated with Vendor	3M Cloud Library at the State Library of Kansas and Baker & Taylor's Axis 360 at King County Library System
Publisher Hosting Model	Yes	Yes	Fair Use	Publisher	Publisher-hosted software	PDF or in-browser	Prices posted or negotiated with vendor	Publishers who have sold DRM-free ebooks to OhioLINK: ABC-CLIO, Gale, Oxford University Press, Sage, Springer, and Wiley

Key

Name: Shorthand name for the model.
Ownership: Do libraries own authorized copies of the ebooks?
DRM-free: Does this option make ebooks available to libraries without freedom-restricting software?
Copyright/License: What legal protections apply to these authorized copies?
Source: How do libraries obtain copies of these eBooks?
Distribution: How do libraries distribute copies of these eBooks?
Format: In what format are these copies encoded?
Cost: Who pays and how much?
Examples: Libraries that are using this model.

Introduction (Draft)

Perhaps the most pressing issue in American libraries today is the need to serve the rapidly increasing percentage of people who own ebook readers and tablet computers. According to a January 23, 2012 report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January." If libraries wish to serve people who own these devices while also upholding the core values that best serve readers (e.g., intellectual freedom and preservation), they need to develop ebook practices and software that complement one another.

The only ebook options that uphold libraries' core values either provide libraries with ownership rights for the authorized copies they purchase and circulate or are free of digital rights management (DRM) software, ideally both. DRM is an inherently flawed technology that can be replaced either by creating better software or, more likely, by developing models that enable libraries to acquire ebooks and authors, editors, and others involved in publishing to get paid for their work. By analyzing every existing model that either involves ownership or is DRM-free, people who are interested in libraries can develop a consensus around realistic and efficient practices, and can create and adapt software to support these practices.

Why do libraries matter when it comes to eBooks?

"The processes of selecting, acquiring, and making available for use the contents of graphic records comprise the operational aspects of librarianship. Librarianship is a trinity of acquisition, organization, and dissemination, in which acquisition relates to the selection and accumulation of materials, organization to their preparation for efficient use, and dissemination to the processes of making the contents of graphic records available to the user" (Shera, 1972, p.193).
Acquisition. Libraries play an important role in helping to establish the books that people can trust, or are especially likely to enjoy in their leisure time.
Organization. Metadata created and preserved by libraries is a public resource. If we rely solely on commercial enterprises, we make books more difficult to locate and analyze.
Dissemination. Just because people can afford ereaders does not mean they can afford ebooks. Video games and DVDs have the highest per-copy circulation here in Collingswood (investigate public circ stats to see if this pattern holds) even though the equipment required to make use of video games and DVDs is far more expensive than an ereader.
Preservation. HathiTrust is an important component of the digitization efforts that have taken place to date, as is the Internet Archive, but these efforts apply primarily to preservation and access for works that were initially released in print. Libraries need to make different arrangements for work that exists only in electronic form. As David M. Levy wrote (about research, but it applies just as well to commercial enterprises, and about the Web, though it also seems relevant to ebooks) in "Digital Libraries and the Problem of Purpose" (2000):
"...stronger participation from the traditional library community seems essential. And had it been available earlier, such participation might have helped us avoid the most glaring omission of the first decade of digital library research and development: the lack of attention to preservation. It is only in the last few years that the enormity of the preservation problem has begun to become generally known, and research which might help resolve it is still very much in its infancy. For roughly a decade we have been rushing to put materials online with no thought to (and no idea of how to) preserve them. One consequence is that, almost certainly, there will be a hole in history...."
Given that libraries' relationship with serials, especially electronic journals (e.g., the pricing practices that have resulted in a widespread boycott of all journals published by Elsevier), can be seen as a lesson in how not to work with commercial interests, it may be worth noting the recent report by university libraries at Columbia and Cornell which notes that only "15-20% of the e-journal titles in the libraries' collections are currently preserved" by libraries' two leading digital preservation initiatives, LOCKSS and Portico. One way for libraries to avoid these kinds of difficulties is to find ways now, while ebooks are still relatively new, to begin preserving copies of ebooks in ways that will ensure their availability for future readers.
Production. Libraries can help authors publish, and not just in the traditional sense of library-as-place (e.g., Marx in the Reading Room of the British Museum, surrounded by documents and given a quiet place to work), though that's still an important library function. However, library-as-place is likely to play only a small role when it comes to ebooks, which are generally downloaded and read outside of libraries. The connection between libraries and the publication of ebooks could be far more practical: helping authors turn their manuscripts into ebooks, and helping them find their audience. See Nate Hill's A two part plan to make your library a local publisher.

Why should anyone care if libraries own authorized copies?

(Explanation of first sale, fair use, and DCMA)
Acquisition, dissemination, organization, and preservation.
Budgeting, as well as the ability to negotiate fair terms (e.g. serials disappear when budgets shrink because libraries don't own authorized copies)

Why does DRM matter?

(Definition of DRM)
Privacy (Intellectual Freedom): "The Right to Read" (1997) and "The Digital Imprimatur" (2003)
Usability (Dissemination)
Obsolescence (Preservation)

Brief notes on companies and models that are not included in the table

Bilbary, an ebook store that is scheduled to go live in March 2012 with titles from almost every major publisher, has been working with Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) to find a way to support libraries. The most likely arrangement would allow for libraries to benefit from an affiliate program for sales referrals, one that could eventually include co-branding. Another possibility would be for Bilbary to facilitate short-term rentals, sort of like a cloud-based, ebook version of McNaughton Subscription Service, though libraries would be charged per transaction rather than paying a monthly access charge. All titles would include DRM and no authorized copies would be owned directly by the library; instead, libraries would subsidize or underwrite cardholders' rental costs.
Ingram's MyiLibrary allows publisher to decide how they want to handle DRM, and I have heard from Rosen Publishing, which uses this MyiLibrary, that its ebooks are sold without DRM (awaiting further details as of March 8, 2012). It is not clear if purchases are transferable to another vendor or server.
Library Renewal is an exciting project led by Michael Porter, American libraries' answer to Dean Kamen. Library Renewal is currently planning a groundbreaking system that would eliminate inefficiencies and unnecessary expenses in the ebook market, and offer transparent pricing for publishers, rightsholders, and libraries.
OverDrive does not provide DRM-free downloads and changed the provision in its contracts that supported library ownership of the copies which libraries purchase through OverDrive.
Safari has a consumer product that allows for DRM-free downloads, but access to the titles in Safari's library product is online-only.

How does library-based technology figure into ebooks?

Libraries could create and potentially even sell ebook readers. Some combination of the One Laptop Per Child/Raspberry Pi model, the Kualo OLE model, and Kickstarter makes this idea much less far-fetched than it would have been a couple of years ago.
Libraries could create open source server software or other ways to distribute ebooks.
Libraries could create publishing platforms that make it easy for would be authors to collaborate with would be editors and designers, and also make it easy for authors to distribute their work.
Library technologists can help guide purchasing decisions, encouraging management away from particularly costly decisions.

Notes on the DIY Model

Uses Open Library's model as a precedent and gives individual libraries control of their own authorized copies.

Notes on the Library License

From Jeff Goldenson, who first proposed the idea: "This is a young project, working itself out as we speak. If you are interested in exploring it further, visit librarylicense.org and reach out."

Notes on Open Library

Endorsed by all fifty state librarians in the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA)
Open Library retains ownership of the authorized copies of ebooks on behalf of the participating libraries.

Notes on the Open Source/DRM Hybrid Model

Momentum Builds for DCL's Ebook Model

Bibliotecha

Notes on the Portability Model

Notes on the Publisher Hosting Model

Perpetual Access. This is when a library's cardholders have access to the ebooks a library has purchased even if the library does not have a subscription to the vendor's ebook platform.
Archival Access. This is when a library retains the right to transfer an authorized copy to its own servers or to another vendor.
This model is most prevalent in contracts between academic libraries and scholarly publishers. For instance, Cornell University Library, which will not enter into vendor contracts that require nondisclosure of pricing information or other information that does not constitute a trade secret, has perpetual access provisions in its contracts with A, B, and C, and archival access provisions with X, Y, and Z. The language for these contracts is based on the NorthEast Research Libraries Licensing Guidelines and Model License.

Notes on the Sneakernet Model

A seeming step back, but perhaps the most practical way to wait out the technological changes that we know will happen soon, we just don't know when or what form they will take. Libraries would buy ebooks just like any other purchaser and place their authorized copy on a read-only flash drive, which they would track using their existing software (they could even use bar codes). It would require that borrowers with ereaders purchase an extra adapater or dongle, but the added price is less than the cost of two or three ebooks, and the inconvenience would be fairly minimal, if clearly less than ideal. When a new server technology emerges, libraries could transfer their ebook files to the server and erase them from their read-only flash drives.

Notes on the State Redistribution Model

The author or publisher would retain ownership of the authorized copies, but sharing them would be legal.

Notes on the Steampunk Model

Another step back (in this case from digital back to print), but there are many solely digital works that some libraries might want to circulate in print. One example: Download the Universe (science eBook review)

Notes on Unglue.it

Ownership of authorized copies of Creative Commons-licensed ebooks in the Unglue.it model will be universal.

Notes on the Unlimited Content License Model

Publishers agree to allow the library to distribute unlimited, unencrypted copies to their cardholders, and libraries agree to pay the publishers a flat annual fee. If the library chooses not to renew its payment, it must remove the files from its servers when the term is up. Additonally, the publisher makes explicit its "reps and warranties" that it's their content to license, and indemnifies the library against infringement claims if they made a mistake. Finally, the publisher agrees that the library's users can make copies and derivative works for their personal use.

Additional Resources

National Information Standards Organization (NISO) E-Book Special Interest Group
Triangle Research Libraries Network Beyond Print project
Eric Hellman discusses Portability, Transferability, Privacy, Accessibility, and Integrability in Random House's eBook Price Hikes are GOOD for Libraries. IF...

Thanks

Thanks to Michael Bills, Jo Budler, Tim Coates, Shea Crow, Marin Foster, Jeff Goldenson, Amber Kiepe, Jesse Koennecke, Jamie LaRue, Robert Miller, Mary Minow, Eli Neiburger, Michael Porter, John Saylor, Karen Schneider, Monique Sendze, Ari Shanok, Kate Sheehan, Richard Stallman, Katy White, and Andromeda Yelton (and more to come) for their help with my research.