Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Who Will Survive?

Hilary Melton-Butcher sent me the link to an interesting blog post written last month by Kirsten Winkler. Winkler discusses the future of libraries and bookstores. She feels bookstores and libraries are becoming the collateral damage of the eBook revolution. She, like most of us, hope they survive.

Winkler notes that a lot of libraries are lending eBooks. Personally, I like that. It will help them stay relevant. I still worry about bookstores, though. She talks about those stores where the owner or employee knows books and can direct you to exactly what you’ll like. We used to have stores like that. My favorite was owned by the wonderful mystery author, Jan Grape. She was that kind of person. She knew mystery and she knew (and still knows) every big mystery author in the U.S. But she and her husband retired. Unlike Winkler, I don't know of any big chain stores now with that kind of personnel. Certainly not B&N or the other big names.

And I really don't like Winkler’s idea that if I buy an eBook in a bookstore for my iPad, the publisher can track me via my cell phone. She sites it as a possible way for bookstores to make money:
For the economic model, there could be revenue share based on location, e.g. if a customer decides to buy an ebook when he is inside a bookstore or library, the device would know this due to GPS and location awareness and therefore the publisher would share revenue the same way as with physical books.
'Course the publisher could probably track me via the iPad, too, as I sit in my living room dowloading. I harken back to the days of Down With Big Brother, which didn't work then and won't work now.

Link over and read the article. There’s also a video to watch. Both of them have some interesting points. Thanks Hilary!

14 comments:

  1. Interesting post, Helen!

    I hope libraries keep thinking of ways to stay relevant. I'd hate for them to start disappearing.

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  2. I've heard of libraries and lending ebooks. I'm off to the library today. I love the place and hope it will always be here, especially for my kids when the have kids.

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  3. Me, too, Elizabeth. Without a library, I would have been one sad kid.

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  4. I watched as computers and pagination phased out newsroom backshops, now the internet is closing down newspapers. Hopefully some bookstores, as have some newspapers, find a way to survive. Change changes things, both for the good and bad. Pat Bean

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  5. They're tracking my purchases??? That's a scary thought.

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  6. Hi Helen .. thanks for posting on the article - you just seem more au fait with these kind of things.

    I don't know what's happening in London and the big cities in the UK .. and I don't use the library that often here. I must sometime spend some time down there to find out their modus operandi and plan of action...

    Tracking us by our purchases .. they do that here in the supermarkets if you have a store card - I refuse to use one.

    Unfortunately every device is built with a GPS tracker in it now .. I hate the big brother aspect - it's open to abuse, on the other hand in extreme circumstances could be useful.

    I'll be interested to read others' comments - thanks .. cheers Hilary

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  7. Pat, I think bookstores are recognizing the huge shift in the way people get books. They're trying now to change in order to stay relevant and in business.

    I'm with you, Hilary, on hating the idea that I can be tracked wherever I go. It's so Big Brother.

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  8. Yeah, I don't like it either ... big brother used to pound me into a sandhill every chance he got.

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  9. I think libraries and bookstores are essential, and know many of them are struggling. Our local libraries lend ebooks for free, and I am a volunteer who takes print books to a homebound senior, through a library program.

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  10. Libraries will survive, They're more popular than ever, with their new multi-media attitude, at least in our town. I hope bookstores will survive too ... such that I have a place to kill some time when I have to go shopping with my old lady >:)

    Cold As Heaven

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  11. My local bookstore is selling less books and more educational toys. I hardly go anymore...since I'm on a budget and the library is near. I feel badly, because I loved the store and know among all the other things going on in the publishing world, that people like me, who are buying less, are another reason why the little store has to adapt it model. I assume it won't last too much longer and I'll be sad when it closes...but if the library goes, I don't know how I'll survive.

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  12. Christopher, were you living in the desert or on a golf course at the time?

    What a great idea Terra. I have a ton of books I'm hoping my library will take. That would be a great use for them.

    So, Cold As Heaven, you're idea of shopping with your wife is to go browse a bookstore and have a latte while she shops?

    I understand Liza. Totally.

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  13. I was recently in a bookstore in the U.P. like the one you mentioned. Snowbound Books in Marquette Michigan is in an old Victorian house so you go from room to room, mysteries to liteary to YA etc. They offer both used and new and they're all mixed together.

    One of the things I loved was that employees write a little blurb about any books they had read and liked and the mini review was taped below the book. Employee picks, if you will. It was a really neat personalized feature of the store. If there were more bookstores like this, I swear more people would spend time and money in them. Why don't you open one??!!!

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  14. I was recently in a bookstore in the U.P. like the one you mentioned. Snowbound Books in Marquette Michigan is in an old Victorian house so you go from room to room, mysteries to liteary to YA etc. They offer both used and new and they're all mixed together.

    One of the things I loved was that employees write a little blurb about any books they had read and liked and the mini review was taped below the book. Employee picks, if you will. It was a really neat personalized feature of the store. If there were more bookstores like this, I swear more people would spend time and money in them. Why don't you open one??!!!

    ReplyDelete

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