Checking Out E-Books

The consumer market for digital books has turned out to be a no-show, but America's public libraries still think folks should be checking them out. Ever since March 1999, when the Denver Public Library system kicked off the first "virtual branch" of digital books available for free to library-card holders, 1,900 of the nation's nearly 9,000 public libraries have quietly added thousands of digital titles to their collections.

The problem? Their efforts have been so understated that most library patrons have yet to learn about, let alone use, the libraries' online collections of reference works and how-to guides.

That can be something of a problem, considering the cost of starting a public library e-book collection. It costs between $8,000 and $10,000 for 300 to 500 e-books, according to Marge Gammon, senior director of marketing for Boulder, Colo.-based NetLibrary, the sole Web-hosting firm that provides e-books to libraries.

Some librarians think e-book collections are too expensive, considering that the only library branches open around the clock haven't been getting many visitors. The Los Angeles Public library system, which boasts 1.3 million cardholders, logs just 1,800 e-book users a month. Of the Chicago Public Library's 3 million patrons, only 72 used the e-books collection in June. The 7,000-title collection available to Denver's 460,000 users was accessed a mere 212 times during the past 180 days.

Yet libraries feel obliged to go forward with the program, as they have with other now-familiar formats such as DVD, CD, video, Braille and large-print books. The rationale for expending tax dollars on e-books that have held little appeal goes to the heart of the public libraries' mission to give all community members a shot at information resources in as many forms as possible. "Our responsibility is to make sure that people who don't have high-end electronic information resources (because of cost) can have access to them though the library," says Roberto Esteves, chief of information resources for the San Francisco Public Library. "And let's face it: We're reliable. So much information on the Web is not."

Still, the reliability of information might be a moot point if library patrons aren't aware of the service. The San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago public libraries all offer the service, but their austere home pages offer no inkling of its existence, with their NetLibrary links ensconced within their online catalog pages. (To use NetLibrary in Denver, for example, you must first click on "Research and Study," then click on "Homework." And that's after visiting the library in person to register to use the system.)

It's not that the public libraries want their e-book collections to go unused. As NetLibrary's Gammon explains, "They're not marketers by nature." That's why NetLibrary recently began offering its clients a Web-based promotional kit with ready-made logos, downloadable graphics and preprogrammed Web pages with links to information on e-books.

Another factor that limits accessibility is that if a library has purchased only one copy of a particular e-book, only one patron at a time can read it. "Publishers are freaked out about getting 'Napsterized,' " says Leigh Watson Healy, an analyst with the consulting firm Outsell, which advises public and private institutions about content providers.

Gammon notes that NetLibrary is considering offering unlimited e-book access to public libraries, charging them based on the size of the communities they serve. However, Healy defends the existing payment scheme as a decent deal for the public libraries, as it provides precise costs for budgeting purposes and allows libraries to pay exclusively for the service they use.

Meanwhile, Merle Jacob, director of collections for the Chicago Public Library, urges the public to be patient with the way libraries currently provide e-book content. "We're in a period of trial and error," she contends. "I don't think this is the model that will exist five years from now."