THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS POSSIBLE NSFW VISUAL CONTENT
Right up front I want to get one thing straight. I am a Mama Lion when it comes to libraries. They are my admitted blind spot, my weakness, my true love. I strongly encourage you, dear reader, to not take anything I say here as part of that stupid “libraries are obsolete” nonsense that’s going around. While I may not believe that libraries are obsolete, I do believe they are in danger of underestimating their patronage and thereby, ultimately, transforming their patronage in ways that are not good for the society that funds the libraries.
I am a libertarian, but I’ll try not to use that word too much in this piece because I am forever mistaking it for “librarian”–and vice-versa–when skimming Facebook. As a libertarian I firmly believe that libraries are like standing armies; a crucial part of the societal agreement necessary for the protection and growth of the community. Rachel Walden, noted author of the Women’s Health News blog (and a dear friend I deeply respect), wrote an outstanding piece over the weekend about book deserts, their effect on the community, and the library as oasis.
the Nashville Public Library *does* make some services and materials available remotely. They provide OverDrive, an ebook borrowing system that is not perfect, but is certainly better than having *no* reading materials available.
It’s that Overdrive System that I’m needing to address out of a frothing frustration.
Overdrive is not run by the Nashville Public Library. They are an outside service that the NPL–or any local library system–can subscribe to in order to provide digital media (e-books, audiobooks, MP3 music, video) to the library’s subscribers. It’s not unlike going to a restaurant for dinner and finding out that the appetizers are catered by another eatery. The reason for this system–best I can tell–is that the publishers need a solution that makes them comfortable about the management of their digital rights. Instead of interacting directly with each library system to monitor DRM*, the publishers can interact with Overdrive. It’s a middleman, imposing clumsy restrictions that muck up a previously-streamlined process.
I’ve come to accept those restrictions as the price of having access to electronic materials. What I cannot accept, however, is the glaringly base and sloppy presentation of content.
This is standard fare from Overdrive, and is representative of what seems to be the bulk of the collection. (No pun intended.)
Yes, there are other things, of course. But chances are if you are not looking for a specific volume by title or author name, you’ll be browsing through several pages of Dude Nipples and soft-core clinches before finding anything that isn’t pulp fiction. Many of these titles are already offered free or deeply discounted to owners of e-readers. I strongly suspect that Overdrive has sold itself to libraries as offering an ebook collection of X number of volumes, without specifying that most of their acquisitions are from the e-book version of the discount bin. It is, quite literally, cheap smut.
As far as reading goes, I have no problem with anyone reading whatever they want to read. I’m a firm believer in that librarians’ chant “a book for every reader, a reader for every book.” Diddling The Duke is not my idea of a good read, but I don’t care one iota if you partake. I’m not your wife, mother or priest. However, I get the strong feeling from my hours of browsing the Overdrive collection that the curators of Overdrive are not too eager to spend top dollar for much content beyond the bottom line.
To that end I beg the Nashville Public Library–and all other public libraries who subscribe to Overdrive–to put due pressure on Overdrive to hire better content managers. We need true librarians overseeing the e-books available to the Public Library patrons of the United States. If we’ve all got to be stuck with this kluge of a system, at least let’s get the content up to par with the type of minds we want to develop in ourselves.
*Digital Rights Management
Thanks for your post and the link – I’m going to share it around to some librarian folks I know.
I have given up browsing that system. I only search authors/titles. But you are right, and we should be asking the Nashville Library to push OverDrive to carry more titles that have a different audience.
(Though I have a sneaking suspicion that there is more overlap between the library’s usual patrons and male-nipple-cover readers than I would like to know about.)
Have you talked to the librarians at Nashville Public? I’m a librarian and I administer the OverDrive account at our library. We select each title ourselves, so if the content you’re complaining about is in the Nashville collection it’s because the collection managers at Nashville chose it. Unfortunately many of the largest publishers of best sellers won’t allow libraries to buy their ebooks at all, but ther are plenty of other kinds of titles available for libraries to choose if they will. It may be that the checkout statistics tell the librarians that this is what a large number of their users want, but you won’t know unless you ask. Librarians want to know what their users want, so talk to them about it.
I am a patron of a different library system that also uses Overdrive. I’m also a Librarian, but I work with the computer systems behind the scenes. I understand the points in your post. I really have to ask, Did you discuss using Overdrive with any of the Librarians at your Public Library?
I started reading E-books on the Palm Pilot in the late 90s. When Overdrive came out, I looked into it and wasn’t very happy so I had a long chat with a Librarian in my Public Library. Here’s what I found out.
The Library itself determines which titles it is going to purchase from the Overdrive collection. They can’t buy a block of titles in a subject, but identify each title individually. I searched the last 10 titles I’d read and found 8 of them in Overdrive’s collection (http://search.overdrive.com/classic/), but only 4 in the Maryland collection (maryland.lib.overdrive.com). (Maryland shares the purchases from Overdrive among most county systems.) To me, that means your complaint is with NPL not Overdrive. NPL decided which books to buy.
I looked at your NPL Overdrive interface and compared it to mine. Both of them let you browse by topics. I’d only see those titles you complain about if I was browsing the Romance collection. I did notice the default view has most recent added at top and wondered if you’d get better results if you picked most popular.
I find Overdrive to be a good system in general. There is still a lot of flux in the publishing world when it comes to E-books, so all of this is still subject to change. Some publishers don’t sell E-books to Overdrive, but I can tell you they have a diverse collection that isn’t just soft porn.
J, I can assure you, because Kat and I are using the same library system, that when you browse the very first NPL OverDrive page on a device like an iPad (i.e., you’re in the OverDrive app on an iPad, and click “get books”), what you see first are a set of fiction titles at the top of the page, and they are primarily of the sort she mentions. It does *not* require browsing into the Romance section for those to be presented first.
And in general, Kat is expressing both her love of libraries and her need for additional reading materials, which she may or may not have talked to NPL about yet. It’s not really very transparent to users (or even to librarians who don’t deal with OD) how the titles are selected, if they’re in batches or one by one, etc. Let’s not jump on a “tell the user how they’re wrong” train here.
Rachel, I don’t think the user is wrong & I don’t think I was even suggesting that. I am suggesting she talk with her Library since she is blaming Overdrive but I think the problem lies with her Library not the Overdrive system. The only way to find out how her Library uses Overdrive is to talk with her Library. Same as I did when I had a question. To my Public Library, I am just another patron. (I do not work for them.)
I was looking at the web version, not the iPad app. On the iPhone, when I start the Overdrive app, it connects me to a mobile version of the web page that gives me the same browse capabilities, just more limited in that they only show 3 pages. That is all based on the Maryland consortium’s settings and not Overdrive’s. I made NPL my library and looked at the same page. The default shows recently added so it is very different from what I see on Maryland’s page. It seems that NPL has been adding a lot of Romance to their collection.
To help NPL justify their decision, I’ll note the 1 copy of _Nightfire_ is checked out and 3 patrons are waiting for it. _Mane Attraction_ has 1 copy checked out and 4 patrons waiting to read it.
I want to emphasize that Overdrive isn’t a one size fits all product. Every Library system is tailoring it to their users. Based on the holds, I think NPL is working to fill it’s users’ needs, but only they can justify their decisions.
I hadn’t talked to the library; the person I spoke with was at Overdrive.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I just didn’t want us to veer that way; you know as a librarian how quickly that can happen in some of these type discussions.
As to the demand for erotica and romance, I am sure it is there. But I’m also sure that
Just to be clear, I don’t think that any of us is objecting to seeing the bare chests (though I gotta say that none of them looks much like the bare male chests I’ve actually seen IRL, which makes it hard for me to relate — it’s like when it all used to be lowlowlowcut bodices [on those same sorts of books] and I kept thinking “no freckles? no tan lines? I didn’t know they had such good cosmetic surgery back in the [insert century]“). It’s knowing that so much of that is available when the books we’d each respectively prefer to read aren’t that’s the problem.
(There *is* also a system in place for users to recommend additional OD titles be purchased. Kat and I, both voracious readers, have found that we max out on allowed recommendations after suggesting 2-3 titles at a time. PS-I’m also a librarian, if that wasn’t apparent.)
Rachel, how does one find that system? Because there are some current titles I’d like to recommend. Which they probably won’t buy, because they just don’t buy enough SF. But one can try.
Please be forewarned that they tend to only act on 10-15% of recommendations. And then only for fiction titles. I’ve never had an academic or non-fiction title bought through yet. Rachel DID get _Medical Apartheid_ in, which was a nice victory.
Oh, I don’t expect them to get academic titles. Budgets have limits, and academic publishers charge ridiculous prices. But fortunately for me, there are people at Vanderbilt ordering books smack in the middle of my interests, and I have friends who check out books for me.
I just figure that the more recommendations they get to buy good SF, the better. The number of critically-praised books they ignore in that area is staggering.
nm, what you have to do is, instead of searching with the default “Library Collection” or “Available Now” selected, choose “Additional Titles.” Those are things they could but haven’t added to the local OD offerings – then by the book you want, you can click on “Recommend” – which will also give you options to be alerted/get on the wait list if they do add it.
Thanks!
I’ve been using the Science Fiction and Fantasy section a lot lately. They seem to be heavily skewed toward the YA stuff trending these days. Vampire romance and such.
They’re not bad on good fantasy, both epic and otherwise. It’s the straight SF they ignore.
What I want to know is why the two long responses I sent from my iphone didn’t post. GROAN. They had details that mattered. I swear I’m this close to giving up on technology altogether.
Your library system likely ( as ours does) has a title selection committee. They are the ones picking the content they purchase.
[...] people complain about ebooks, which they can reasonably see as indistinguishable from print books as a library’s core [...]
Our local library has always been a bit small for the area that it serves (around 30,000 people in this small suburb of Austin). They have approximately 10,000 books in, oh, maybe 15,000 square feet (I’m estimating). A few years ago they did a big public drive for a bond that would fund a massive library expansion. Cost something like 8 million dollars. Of course, I voted yes. Libraries are good, right? It passed.
The other day I went in and had a look at the blueprints which have just been made public. The new library is almost double the size. New meeting rooms, fancy new offices, computer terminals, a coffee bar… and still 10,000 books.
The eight million dollar library expansion funded everything but books.
sigh