Sunday, November 1, 2009

Lbrary bypass to reach St. Jerome in his pajamas

John Esposito writes: I live 100 yards from a campus of the University of California, but cannot get remote access to the UC digital collection at any price. This situation won’t last; the pressure of a knowledge economy, coupled with the incentives of enterprise, will bring the riches of the world of information to my study. My PayPal account is ready.



Esposito comments on Motoko Rich's recent NYT piece about ebooks and libraries which he says "raises the question of how publishers will come to terms with the possibility that the sale (or lease) of one copy of a book will lead to multiple readers of that copy." One answer is that epublishers will wish to bypass libraries altogether and reach their endusers  - the "St. Jeromes in pajamas" - directly. But Esposito puts a library-positive spin on it: "A bypass strategy is a prudent means to find other ways to derive revenue from publications without imposing a further tax on a library’s strained materials budget."

No comments:

Post a Comment