{"id":1285,"date":"2011-10-12T21:49:05","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T01:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2011-10-12T21:49:05","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T01:49:05","slug":"e-book-webinar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/e-book-webinar\/","title":{"rendered":"E-book webinar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today several of us on the library staff were able to attend parts of the Library Journal\/School Library Journal<\/em> webinar on e-books and libraries.\u00a0 There were a lot of good statistics about current e-book usage in libraries, and lots of good ideas and lots of questions.\u00a0 But not many answers.<\/p>\n

Many of the questions were questions that I’ve been thinking of myself:\u00a0 with the rise of e-books, what happens to people who can’t afford e-readers?\u00a0 What about the different formats of e-readers that don’t talk to each other?\u00a0 How can libraries incorporate e-books into their budgets and their collections?\u00a0 How is the advent of e-books going to affect the structure and existence of libraries?\u00a0 What about the long waiting lists for popular e-books at libraries, when the e-book medium is perceived by the public as being an instant one – instant gratification?\u00a0 How can libraries explain the need to wait on a list for a certain e-book title, even though that is the way it works for a popular, recently published print version of a book?\u00a0 And, more specifically for library staff, how to decide which titles to spend limited available funds on?\u00a0 And which e-book formats are worth investing in?<\/p>\n

I had two favorite parts of this e-book summit: several speakers mentioned that libraries will need to change their focus from being solely book-based, and these speakers mentioned that libraries can pump up their programming (storytimes, book groups, etc.) in order to retain a wholly relevant place in the community.\u00a0 As a programming-ambitious children’s librarian, that’s a lot of what I do.<\/p>\n

And the other favorite part for me of the webinar was M.T. Anderson’s closing address.\u00a0 It was very similar to the closing address that I heard him present at the children’s literature summer institute at Simmons this summer, but I was\u00a0glad to hear it again.\u00a0 Anderson is an intelligent, wise\u00a0speaker, and his\u00a0talk on e-books is dense and packed with information and meaty thoughts to digest; a second hearing only helped my understanding.\u00a0 I won’t attempt to summarize his nearly one hour talk in a few sentences here, but I will say that I left both hearings of Anderson’s address feeling hopeful about the future for books and libraries and authors and literature.\u00a0 Change is nothing new, and change could bring great things to our culture.\u00a0 It could also bring unpleasantness, but despite Anderson’s balanced presentation (both hopeful and pessimistic), I came away feeling good about my career and my passion for books.\u00a0 A good way to end an enlightening day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today several of us on the library staff were able to attend parts of the Library Journal\/School Library Journal webinar on e-books and libraries.\u00a0 There were a lot of good statistics about current e-book usage in libraries, and lots of good ideas and lots of questions.\u00a0 But not many answers. Many of the questions were … Continue reading E-book webinar<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-literature","category-librarianship","category-young-adult-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1287,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions\/1287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}