 According to library director Richard Sumrall, the development of an
online presence was in response to increasing demand from the
community.
"Myself and several of my colleagues started bringing this issue
up at library system meetings that we needed some sort of online
presence, because we were getting more requests from people for
this," Sumrall said. "We are committed to moving forward with the
future ... so we're doing a couple of different things."
The library purchases its electronic collection from an e-book
distributor called OverDrive. Resources are shared among a
consortium of other libraries, which means online availability will
increase exponentially.
"I'd say we're probably somewhere between 750 and 1,000 (online)
titles right off the bat," Sumrall said. "Right now we have
physically in both buildings probably about 58,000 total titles, so
I don't know that we will reach that (in Libraries on the Go). But
with 10 libraries online now and many more coming in, we will hit
several thousand titles, we hope, by this time next year."
And the titles are not just limited to e-books.
"We are trying to offer books in electronic format, but we're
also trying to offer downloadable audiobooks in a wide variety so
that you can listen to them, which is nice for travelers,
vision-impaired people and people who just don't have the time to
read," Sumrall said. "And we are trying to develop a collection of
downloadable video and downloadable music. It's going to be a lot of
PBS, maybe old classic movies that are more family-friendly."
Preserving the library aesthetic, checking out an electronic
title is much the same as checking out a print copy -- but without
the late fee. Anywhere Internet access is offered, readers can use
their library cards to make selections at www.libraryonthego.org and
put them in their virtual "backpacks." Once downloaded, they are
available in Adobe EPUB or PDF formats and are compatible with
Macintosh and PC computers as well as various smart phones and
e-readers. After seven days, the titles automatically go back
online.
This shift from print to electronic echoes a broader social
trend. Last December, Amazon.com named the Kindle wireless reading
device among its top 10 best-sellers of the holiday season.
Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said that their
e-reader, the Nook, is largely responsible for an enormous increase
in the company's digital sales.
"Barnes & Noble continues to see explosive growth in e-book
sales, with our share of the digital market at 20 percent in under a
year, exceeding our share of the retail book market," Keating said
in an e-mail. "A big part of our rapid share gains is attributable
to our unmatched ability to let millions of readers try, buy and use
our Nook e-book readers in our stores."
While gadgets such as the Nook seem more accommodating to younger
demographics that have grown up with advanced technology, public
response to resources such as Library on the Go has proven
remarkably diverse.
"We thought that of course it was going to be younger people
(using the online collection) -- professionals, students, people who
are more tech-savvy," Sumrall said. "But oddly enough, the very
first e-mail I got thanking us for this is from someone (older) who
you would not necessarily think would be into this kind of thing.
"This is going to be a wonderful thing for senior citizens who
have vision impairment issues, because they can either listen to the
item, or they can download it and then manipulate the size of text
however they want. And of course for homebound people who can't even
get to the library, this could be perfect. So there's going to be a
lot of different populations that will be served by this."
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One group uniquely affected by the availability of online
resources is college students. Mike Starasta, director of McKinstry
Library at Lincoln College, said that because students' needs differ
from that of the average reader, technology isn't affecting their
use of materials in the same way.
"I don't see things like the Kindle or whatever affecting us so
much right now," Starasta said, "because a lot of what's on that
seems to be more popular literature, whereas we have more nonfiction
and research-based materials. We're very different from the public
library that way.
"One thing we have seen, though, is a shift toward the online
databases, and that's one advantage of electronic resources. You can
have a lot of access to many more journals, and in a lot of ways, it
is easier to find the articles. Back when I was in college, you had
to go use the Readers' Guide book, and you might have to go through,
say, a decade worth of books to find your material."
So what will a library look like 10, 20, even 100 years down the
road?
In terms of the institution, Sumrall said he doesn't see it
becoming obsolete. Last year marked the sixth straight year of
circulation increase for Lincoln Public Library and an all-time
record of more than 113,000 items checked out.
While Sumrall cited the economy as a primary factor behind the
uptick -- "more people decide they'll check out books rather than
buy them; they'll check out movies rather than rent them; they need
information for resumes and things like that" -- he also pointed to
the demand for expertise as a reason for the library's permanence.
"People will still need assistance with answering questions where
they can't find it themselves," he said. "Not everybody will always
have the right equipment or the expertise to use the equipment. So I
think you'll always see a physical library in each community. What
it will look like a hundred years from now is probably going to be a
much different version of this, but I think there will always be a
bricks-and-mortar place for people to go."
Sumrall said he is less optimistic about the endurance of print
resources but that he's enthusiastic about what will be taking their
place.
"I think in the very distant future we will probably be doing
without books, but I don't think we'll see that in our lifetimes,"
Sumrall said. "But eventually I think we'll have such extraordinary
handheld devices that it'll almost mimic that feel. You can kind of
see it already when you get your iPad and flip the pages and
everything. Eventually there will be different shapes, and they'll
have it so lifelike that you'll think you're holding the book.
"So it's an awfully exciting time for us. We are really committed
to bringing these new services and taking the library into the 21st
century, while maintaining and strengthening our core collection and
our core mission to everybody in the community. So it really is the
best of both worlds, we think."
[By LINDSEY BOERMA]
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