A few times in recent months librarians have asked me for advice about
circulating ereader devices pre-loaded with content.
I often refer librarians to the successful Nook lending program at the Burleson, Texas Public Library, and to Buffy Hamilton’s blog,
The Unquiet Librarian, which has excellent accounts of a Kindle lending program
that had to be discontinued and the
Nook lending program that replaced it. Code4lib.org also has useful information
about the issues involved in Kindle lending, and PC Sweeney’s Blog has
arguments for and against checking out ereaders along with a description of the Nook lending program at the Sacramento Public Library.
When an individual consumer is deciding which device to buy for reading
ebooks, it often boils down to an individual preference for Apple,
Amazon or Barnes & Noble. When a
library is choosing a device to circulate, the issues tend to center around the vendor’s
licensing terms and how hard it is for the library staff to manage
a large number of devices. Can you
manage multiple devices with one account at the vendor? Can you load one ebook onto multiple devices
at once? Can you remove the library’s
credit card number from the device before loaning it to patrons? From this
standpoint, many institutions have settled on the Nook Simple Touch as the most suitable
device.
But it turns out that the Nook Simple Touch is inaccessible
to persons with low or no vision, since it does not have a text-to-speech
capability. The National Federation for
the Blind has brought ADA violation complaints against the Nook lending
programs at the Free Library of Philadelphia in May 2012 and now the Sacramento Public Library.
Libraries are trying hard to meet patron expectations with
regard to ebooks. Faced with rapidly
changing technology, limited availability, awkward implementations, device and
format compatibility issues, and high prices for downloadable ebooks, some of
them have navigated the maze of licensing rules and vendor account management
procedures to offer a circulating ereader collection as a creative
solution. The accessibility issue and the corresponding threat of lawsuits presents yet
another obstacle that may force many libraries into abandoning this method of offering ebooks to their patrons.
