Law libraries worldwide are attempting to ‘go digital,’ but it’s no easy venture, as e-book acquisition is a very complicated process for libraries, beginning with the question of “ownership” versus “licensure.” While a general consumer may be able to “purchase” an e-book for $6.50, that same book may only be “licensed” to a library for a specific number of checkouts at a “licensing fee” 10 times that, at which point the library may have to purchase an entirely new license to distribute the very same text, driving up the library’s cost for that book to as much as 150 times what it would cost the consumer. This translates into a constant, never-ending expense for libraries, as they never will “own” that book, and causes a financial divide among readers, as “E-Books Price People out of Reading.”
Because e-book distribution and acquisition has become so complicated, organizations such as ReadersFirst.org, the Digital Public Library of America and Authors for e-Books are working to stem the divide between the haves and have-nots in digital/e-content. “The biggest challenge facing libraries,” according to ReadersFirst, “is that publishers are “not required to sell e-books to libraries — and many do not.” As Art Brodsky writes in “Wired,” e-books are more like apps, “made of computer code displayed as text and pictures,” something that we are only given permission to lease, and never own.”
The good news is that law libraries and America’s libraries alike are all working diligently to expand their digital product offerings, revolutionizing and transforming how consumers acquire information. The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) published a white paper last year outlining the challenges of e-book acquisition and lending, and concluded that e-book distributors and supporters have still made the process too complicated and, in some instances, more expensive. With so many organizations working to address the pitfalls of digitization and e-book lending, and counties such as Montgomery County, Maryland passing resolutions calling for “equitable access at fair prices” to e-books, slowly but surely the world’s libraries are going digital, and our toddlers will be the first to show us how it’s done.