Future of eBooks in Libraries

For some time now the Mid-Hudson Library System has offered eBooks on loan, which can then be read on a Nook or some other eBook  readers.  As I noted earlier, Amazon has announced that they, too, will make eBooks available to Libraries for reading on the Kindle starting later in the summer. But some book publishers are re-thinking their policies for eBooks, and the new thoughts are not beneficial to library lending.  Harper Collins has started the new trend by saying that they will limit eBooks sold to libraries to 26 loans, after which the book will self-destruct.  Obviously Harper Collins has concluded that a popular book, taken out for two-weeks at a time for a year, had fulfilled its duty to its purchaser (although, given the timeline, perhaps I should say renter instead of purchaser).   Other publishers will sell rights to libraries to use an eBook for an unlimited time but--and Harper Collins does this, too--only one person may check out an eBook at a time.

It has been observed that the form of book we commonly think of as a book, which is more properly known as a "codex" (many single sheets bound together so that a reader turns pages to read it), is an outmoded technology.  The book itself has gone through many technologies--cuneiform tablets, papyrus scrolls, parchment scrolls, the codex, and now the eBook.  They are all ways to create a book. The technology for books goes through thousands of years, but we have similar examples of change in our lifetimes--a recorded song might be on a wax cylinder, on vinyl, on an 8-track tape, on a cassette, or on a CD, but it could still be the same song by the same artist. The question libraries now face is whether the codex will be like the vinyl record, still revered and collected by some, or like the 8-track tape, relegated to garage sales.  In either case, the era of the codex seems to be winding down, and the library as we know it will have to change.  Looking at another outmoded technology, consider the ice house and daily delivery to the icebox, which vanished when everyone could buy a refrigerator and even make their own ice.

I believe that the library will undergo a slow change into something else.  There is already ebrary.com, which is not local but which offers short-term rentals of books.  I already can download practically any title that is no longer copyright protected into my cellphone as well as my computer (I am not yet the owner of an eBook reader, thinking that the eBook reader may be the 8-track tape of book delivery).  I don't know exactly where the library is headed, but it will have to change.