vendors
By - Saturday, October 29, 2011 - 11:56am
I meant to write this almost two months ago, but if you are a regular, Gentle Reader, you know that I’ve been a little busy. I won’t bore you with the list of Big Life Changes again.
SO. Anyway, a little over six months in, and I’m declaring LISvendor.info to be a fabulous success. Granted, my definition of “success” was “someone other than me adds to it” and “I don’t get sued.” I’m pleased to report that people are slowly starting to use it and I haven’t had even a whiff of a cease and desist order. The latter is possibly because no one’s added anything truly juicy to it, but the important part is “Sarah Glassmeyer – Lawsuit Free Since 1975!”
(Although I must note that I have no real assets and a pantload of student loan debt, so anyone getting a judgment from me is gonna have to get in line behind Sally Mae and Bank of America. Good luck with that. Say what you will about the student loan debt crisis, but it does give one a certain sense of freedom. But I digress…)
One of the things that prompted me to remind y’all of the existence of LISvendor.info was a recent blog post by Barbara Fister called “Occupy Knowledge: It’s Ours After All.” Go on, go read it…I’ll wait. You back? Okay. So as you’ve seen, she presents a really interesting parallel between Occupy Wall Street movement and the scholarly publishing world. And like the OWS protestors, she creates a version a protest sign listing out the price increases her library has seen in journal subscriptions. (If you didn’t read her post, SPOILER ALERT: American Chemical Society journals have risen from $29,705 in 2010 to $41,741 in 2012.) Fister also encourages others to do the same, either by tweeting or facebooking it.
You could also post it on LISvendor.info…that is one of the reasons I created it.
Although I’m declaring LISVendor.info to be a fabulous success, it could be better. A lot better. I would love to see more people contribute to it. And not just “secret pricing information” either…for example, I love how the proposed AALL Consumer Advocacy Caucus is using it to organize and share information.
A few weeks ago I saw a report of a study on the roots of collaboration in humans. The pull quote:
When it benefits them, chimpanzees willingly work together. Otherwise, they can’t be bothered…For humans, collaboration is rewarding for its own sake, a behavioral split that may underlie key differences between human and chimpanzee societies.
Having participated in a couple collaborative projects now, I can’t say that this is true. I’m not sure that people will work together on something without an immediate reward. I really believe that contributions to LISVendor will ultimately be very beneficial to all, but I must admit that any benefits will not be realized immediately. It will be a slow building process before the collected knowledge reaches the usefulness tipping point. So, long story short, if you can think of ways to encourage participation in this, please let me know.
Finally, some housekeeping notes…initially I wanted to keep this wiki as open and anonymous as possible because I thought people wouldn’t contribute otherwise. Unfortunately, the spammers keep swooping in and wrecking the joint. (A big thanks to Nicole Engard and Amy Buckland for helping me to clean them out.) I’ve since reluctantly added an email to register requirement and then earlier this week a captcha, Hopefully that will cut down on the spamming. (And hopefully people will learn to not be ashamed to ask their doctor for cialis and stop relying on sketchy people on the Internet for their drugs and spamming innocent library wikis becomes impractical. HEY. A GIRL CAN DREAM.) Amy has been deputized as a admin on the wiki and if anyone else would like admin privileges, let me know…I will be happy to add you. I really didn’t want this to be “my thing.” I’m happy to pay for hosting and stare stupidly at the mediawiki php and attempt to fix problems, but this is something that the community needs to take ownership of for it to be successful even more fabulously successful.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunsetgirl_creations/
By - Monday, July 18, 2011 - 9:16am
Last year during the Westlaw iPod debacle, someone made a comment on a blog to the effect that it was high time librarians started acting as consumer advocates. I was really surprised by this…I never thought of myself or my actions in the consumer advocacy vein. For me it was about pedagogy; I thought it was weird to be recommending a particular electronic research service to a student while sipping out of a coffee mug with that same electronic research service’s name splashed on it, so I didn’t accept vendor swag.
Flash forward a year. I’ve educated myself more on the ins and outs of the business of information dispersal (although am still by no means an expert) and really see the need for more consumer advocacy. Furthermore, I think that librarians are a perfect group of people to be doing this. It’s why I joined and support the efforts of the proposed consumer advocacy caucus forming in AALL, do what I can to support groups like Library Renewal and otherwise make a pest of myself on this blog and elsewhere.
Through it all, I’ve been really wanting for AALL, SLA and other library organizations to step up and be a organizing force and leader in these efforts. However, it seems like there’s been a reluctance on their parts to really get active and even make declarative statements one way or another. I must say, I am not unsympathetic to their needs – large organizations have duties to protect their assets and have to be cautious. When words like “anti-trust violations” start to get thrown around, the people organizations hire to be risk adverse get risk adverse and choose not to take action.
Well, I got my wish, in a way, and AALL has made a declarative statement on consumer advocacy. I have to say, though, I am dismayed at the proposed AALL Antitrust Policy. For links to the policy and an explanation from Consumer Advocacy Caucus, please see Consumer Advocacy Caucus Blog. In particular, I want to draw your attention to the list of examples on page five (5) of the document. It reads:
The followlng topics are some examples of the subjects which should not be discussed at
Association meetings, either virtual or live:
1. Do not discuss current or future prices (be very careful of discussions of past prices).
2. Do not discuss what is a fair profit level.
3. Do not discuss standardizing or stabilizing prices or pricing procedures.
4. Do not discuss cash discounts or credit terms.
5. Do not discuss controlling sales or production or allocating markets or customers. (This
applies to services as well as products.)
6. Do not complain to a competitor that its prices constitute unfair trade practices and do not
refuse to dealwith a company or individual because of pricing or distribution practices.
7. Do not discuss anticipated wage rates.
I mean, maybe I’m just a terrible dinner date, but this is pretty much the only thing I like to talk about during breaks at AALL meetings! (And the policy specifically mentions that these should not occur at formal or informal gathering of members, so I don’t think I’m over-reading it. If I am, perhaps the language should be tightened up so that people aren’t unnecessarily worried about violating the policy.) If this proposed policy passes, I know I for one am going to have to seriously consider whether or not I can continue as an AALL member. It’s not even a matter of opinions and what AALL should be doing…I am seriously not sure I can physically comply with it.
It’s not too late and this policy has not been enacted yet. If you have an opinion on this – one way or another (you can’t complain if you don’t vote!)- , I urge you to contact the AALL Executive Board and let them know.
(I am also not an anti-trust expert, but this article sheds more light on economic boycotts.)
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9619972@N08/
By - Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 11:41am
I have this recurring nightmare that one of these days I’m going to hit submit on a blog post and a tweet that says, “Congratulations, Sarah! You have unlocked the RABBLE ROUSER achievement badge on Legal Information Bonanza!” will be auto generated.
I don’t think of myself as a rabble rouser. Or a revolutionary. Or a force of nature. Or a hero. Or a rockstar. Or an obnoxious bitch. Or a petty amateur. Or unprofessional. Or hysterical. Or any of the other labels or names that people have applied to me in the past year or so.
I’m really not angry or confrontational. People always seem surprised when they meet me in person. “YOU’RE Sarah Glassmeyer?” I’ve mostly gotten over my initial inclination to apologize, but I can’t help but feel that people are somewhat disappointed at my countenance and demeanor. Maybe they expect me to whip a WestlawNext t-shirt out of my bag and light it on fire?
Long story short, there’s nothing really extraordinary about me. I just speak my mind. Granted, I have my own website to do it on, but it’s the 21st Century….anyone can have a blog. I guess my question is: why is the mere act of stating one’s opinion about vendors, professional organizations and the profession considered so radical? Why are so many librarians hesitant to speak their mind? It’s not just me wondering it. I spent the first part of this week in Chicago talking to vendors and legal info types and I was asked that very question on more than one occasion.
Sarah Houghton-Jan briefly mentioned some reasons why librarians may not do it. I agree with those reasons, especially the fear of vendors and the disinclination to hurt peoples feelings. Why do I do it? In my more self-deprecating moments I say, “well, I’m almost six feet tall, built like a brick shithouse and I have red hair. Blending quietly into the background was never in the cards for me.” But honestly, why NOT do it?
I reject the idea that dissent automatically equals disrespect. If you are coming from a place of honest belief and have done the due diligence to back your beliefs up with facts, why not state your opinion? Giving and receiving constructive criticism is a baseline professional skill. There’s a poster (often seen in librarian offices!) that says “Your poor planning is not my emergency.” Well, similarly, I think there should be one that says, “Your over-sensitive nature is not my personality problem.” Alternatively, I refer you to LibPunk Mentorship Rule 5.
On the other side of that, being polite doesn’t mean that you are a pushover. We can (and should!) have frank, unemotional and polite conversations amongst ourselves and between the various stops on the information distribution chain (content creators, vendors, publishers, librarians, etc.) about the biz. Because it is a business. And maybe – just maybe – also treat them as colleagues instead of considering them to be enemies. Guess what? I had lunch with a vendor on Monday. And had drinks with another on Monday night. MASS PANDEMONIUM. DOGS AND CATS. LIVING TOGETHER.
I also don’t want to diminish people’s fears about the perceived threat of retaliation from vendors, but can someone (either privately or in a comment here) actually remember an instance of it happening? What form of retaliation is expected? Higher prices? Personal attacks? I had a co-worker who always wanted proof of everything you said. So if you casually mentioned, “Oh, I heard that people are suing Nintendo because they keep throwing their wii controller through their TVs.” He’d say, “Prove it. What’s the case name?” Which was annoying, because I don’t source & cite my casual conversations. But he did sort of have a point that people tend to just accept what they hear without giving it too much careful thought and maybe change behavior when they don’t have to. So I would just like some evidence that vendors do retaliate against librarians that speak out. Otherwise, we might as well be telling each other that if you go into a dark bathroom and chant “Jenny Westlaw” three times, she’ll appear in the mirror and kill you.
One of my favorite movies is the musical 1776. As one might guess from the title, it’s about the writing of the Declaration of Independence. One of the big plot twists is if Congress will even debate the issue of declaring independence from Great Britain. Not actually do it, just talk about it. Stephen Hopkins, the crusty representative from Rhode Island says, “Well, in all my years I ain’t never heard, seen nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about. Hell yeah! I’m for debating anything.” And that’s sort of how I feel.
Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/wemeantdemocracy/
By - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 6:28am
From the announcement:
“We are a diverse group of law librarians and legal publishers who favor fair, and competitive, business practices among vendors of legal information services (LIS). We will soon apply to become an AALL caucus, and we will meet informally during the 2011 AALL Annual Meeting. (We will announce the time and place here.) We ask you to join us as we reinvigorate our profession’s commitment to consumer advocacy. …
Statement of Purpose of New AALL Caucus on Consumer Advocacy
Business practices of legal information vendors (LIVs) warrant more vigorous consumer advocacy than our profession has pursued. Our caucus may: (1) recommend or implement improved disclosures of LIV practices that harm consumers or weaken LIV competition; (2) determine if law librarians and their supporters should renew efforts to investigate unfair, or anti-competitive, business practices by LIVs; (3) recommend further investigation to AALL, interested parties (such as library and attorney associations), or government agencies; (4) examine whether voluntary guidelines have provided adequate remedies to unfair, or anticompetitive, business practices by LIVs; (5) propose legal remedies to AALL, interested parties, or government agencies; (6) encourage law librarians to discuss or pursue these options among themselves and attorneys; and (7) partner with all parties seeking stronger consumer protections from unfair, or anti-competitive, business practices of information vendors. Our caucus may also take other actions to advance the strongest consumer advocacy allowed by law. ”
I encourage you to read the entire thing which lists some very compelling reasons for this caucus to be formed.
If you read that, you’ll see that I am the designated contact person for this caucus. However, I in no way can take any credit for the work and energy that has gone into the formation of this caucus. The true workhorses behind this caucus must remain anonymous at this time. (As an academic, I have more freedom to speak out than my private sector brothers and sisters. And I intend to use it.) I hope one day they can get the credit they deserve.
Photo credit: Library of Congress http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/
By - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - 10:04pm
This is probably a bad idea.
I mean that two ways. One, I may very well be the only person interested in doing something like this and people looking at this project will think, “That’s dumb, Glassmeyer. Why’d you waste time setting that up?” Two, there is a great probability that this will cause me much more trouble and drama than it will ever be worth. And I’m really trying to stay out of the trouble and drama business in 2011. CUE THE MARY J. BLIGE!
Before I bury the lead amongst all my usual blog silliness, I’m going to just spit it out: I set up a wiki where librarians and other interested parties can share information about all aspects of the library/vendor relationship. It can be found at LisVendor.info . Which, handily, what I call it as well. It’s really a product of my own greed and laziness – I find that the more I get into looking at Library-Vendor relations, the more I realize that I don’t know. And I want a one stop shop to collect that information and learn from what others know.
Now for a slightly longer explanation…
About a year ago, I was having dinner with someone at the Computers in Libraries Conference in Washington, DC. The conversation turned, as it does, to the legal information duopoly. (Seriously, Gentle Reader…I am a HELL of a dinner date.) Specifically we were talking – or maybe I was ranting, the memory is fuzzy (A HELL OF A DINNER DATE) – about the secrecy clauses that Wexis enforce in library contracts and Carl Malamud’s efforts to FOIA and release this information from government agencies. I said jokingly, “Someone oughta set up a wikileaks for library contracts.”
My companion and I looked at each other and laughed at the silliness of the idea. And then became serious as we realized, “hey, that’s actually sort of a good idea.” And then laughed again. Then my companion became deadly serious and told me to not do it, but if I was going to do it, keep my name the heck off of it so that I didn’t get personally or professionally harmed. Because “THEY” would come after me.
Undeterred, I came home from CiL, detoxed and then registered the LISVendor.info domain. And then realized that I’m not a computer programmer. Between trying to figure out a way to set up the web site, getting settled into my new job and new region of the country (only 2 weeks into it at that point!), then summer conference season, then trying to figure this new professor gig and survive fall semester, then fall conference season and organization responsibilities… well, the next thing I knew it was last week and I hadn’t really made too much progress on the site besides having the URL point to a drupal install and many many broken iterations of the site.
As you may have noticed, Gentle Reader, I think about library-vendor relations a lot. A LOT. And one thing that I keep discovering is that the things I’m interested in or information I want isn’t really easy to find. So I end up having to spend a lot of time searching around and creating things the Legal Information Providers Merger Graphic. Or those HCOD Math numbers. I also keep realizing that there are big chunks of history and information that I just don’t know because I’m a newer librarian and I’m in a pretty small subject corner of libraryland. So, for example, when Steve Lawson mentioned “The Big Deal” in a recent post, I had hunt around and figure out what the heck he was talking about.
So that’s a major part of what I’d like the site to become. I want a place where librarians can teach and learn from each other on this very important topic.
When I was thinking of the wikileaks idea last year around this time, I also had percolating in my head a post from The Librarian in Black about Unethical Library Vendors that encouraged librarians to share their opinions on vendors with each other. Since not everyone has the time or energy to maintain a blog – and the blogoshere is scattered and hard to keep track of - I thought it’d be nice for there to be a centralized place for librarians to share this info – a libraryland version of the “Shopping for a Better Planet” book that I mentioned in my last post , if you will. It’s forward movement and a way we can all do something that could have some use to others – not waiting for organizations or even our employers to do something.
So, again, I don’t know if anything will come of this. It’s going to take a lot of work from a lot of people to become successful. If you want to take the idea and run with it and put it somewhere else I don’t mind. And if nothing comes of it, that’s fine too.
I set up a rough shell to get things started. I invite you to dig in there and get involved.
By - Sunday, March 6, 2011 - 12:19pm
I have a very early memory – I couldn’t have been much more than 5 years old or so – of asking my mother to buy me Nestle Quik. “Nestle kills babies. We don’t buy from them.” she replied. End of discussion. (As an aside, I apparently have a reputation amongst my friends as being rather, shall we say, straight forward and direct. All I can say is, “you should really meet my mother sometime.” Heh.) Anyway, except for the occasional Crunch bar, no nestle product crossed my lips while I lived under her roof. I’m not sure that I’ve ever had Nestle Quik now that I think about it.
During Apartheid in South Africa I refused to drink Coca-cola. Really, once you start consuming consciously, it’s hard to stop. There was a period there in my teen years that I carried around a little guide book called “Shopping for a Better Planet” or some such thing like that and double checked my purchases. That wasn’t just youthful idealism, by the way… I still vote with my wallet.
- I don’t wear certain brands of shoes because they’re unrepentantly made by 9 year olds in sweatshops.
- I don’t buy certain store brands because they are unfair to farm labor.
- I’ve been driving on past BP gas stations ever since this summer’s gulf oil spill.
- Um, okay, I admit to still shopping at Walmart. Listen, you can take the girl out of Appalachia….
I’m not telling you this to prove I’m a good person. Because believe me, I’m not. I’ve got more skeletons in my closet than Ted Haggard could find pearls to clutch. Nor am I trying to prove my radical bona fides. I don’t worry overmuch about the opinion of others anymore and the older I get, the more I think that the most radical thing a person can do is join the system and change it from within instead of constantly complaining and agitating.
I really wish I was telling you this because my actions helped end Apartheid. Or rehydrated those babies. Or closed those sweatshops. But they didn’t. They don’t. They won’t. This isn’t the Montgomery Bus Boycott where 75% of the riders participated. This is just me. Just me. And the amount I spend on sneakers each year would buy me just about one share of Nike stock.
So why do I bother?
Because even though I’m not part of the solution, I’m not part of the problem. And that little bit is enough. For me, anyway. And on those rare occasions when my shopping habits come up, or someone offers to give me some pirated media, or I refuse to accept vendor swag, I have an opportunity to educate others about issues I care about. Maybe they join in. And do the same. And maybe soon 75% of Nike’s customer base disappears.
Crazier things have happened.
I received a very thoughtful and persuasive email this weekend from a boycott supporter encouraging me to change my stand on the boycott. I still feel like an intruder in these conversations and no one was more surprised than I that my original HCOD math blog post took off like it did. I almost didn’t post it because it was more or less just me thinking out-loud. Hmmm. I wonder how much public libraries really do contribute to the publishing industry bottom line? Oh. That is much less than I thought. Much less. Bummer. A boycott probably is not going to work in this area of libraries either. Back to square one of figuring out solutions, I guess. But, in my tradition of practicing open-notebook science with this blog, I figured that I may as well post it and see if anyone had corrections that would educate me. (And they did. Turns out their numbers were even less than mine.) Who knew that so many people would pay attention to admittedly inaccurate numbers from someone with no first hand knowledge of how public libraries actually work?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I still don’t think a boycott will really impact Harper Collins to a noticeable economic degree. Nor do I think that even if it did (or the political pressure of being mean to libraries becomes a public relations disaster), a “win” of removing the 26 checkout limit would still leave libraries with licensing agreements and eBook format conflicts that are not in their long-term best interest. Nor do I understand why a boycott is limited to Harper Collins…OverDrive seems like it would be a better tactical target for many reasons.
Furthermore, I still think a boycott is overly confrontational at this stage of the game, the eReader User Bill of Rights doesn’t go far enough, and I do think there’s a great danger in “Boycott Harper Collins” becoming about as effectual as people slapping a magnetic ribbon on their car. So if nothing has changed, why am I writing about it again? Well, for one thing, because I could be entirely wrong. Especially because I could be entirely wrong. Like I said, this was a pretty persuasive email written by someone who is much more in the know about these sorts of things than I am. They had many facts and figures showing how a boycott could be effective. While I am quick to roll my eyes at people who seemingly exist to amp up drama and bring obnoxious rhetoric into a discussion that should remain professional, I believe that many who are making the decision to boycott don’t fall into this camp. They are doing so after a long and thoughtful consideration of all the facts and I respect their decision.
Like I said, these facts didn’t convince me, but ultimately, I don’t really have to be convinced. I don’t make purchasing decisions for my library, not that my library uses OverDrive or purchases Harper Collins titles anyway. I don’t actually purchase that many books for my personal use either. I’m not even a fan of Harper Collins’ prize winning author Neil Gaiman. (No, not even Sandman. I know, I know… I tried to like it, I swear!) And I’m really not trying to convince you, Gentle Reader, one way or another what to do with regards to this boycott.
I’m writing about this again – even though I swore I was done – because of one thing that the writer said that absolutely chilled me to the bone. The email posited that librarians were hesitant to join the boycott because it wasn’t a 100% guaranteed win and didn’t solve all the problems with libraries and eBooks. That this was yet another libraryland case of perfect being the enemy of good.
Oh, man, the fear of failure in libraryland is a major burr under my saddle.
My mentor in law school had a framed poster of a quote from Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech hanging in his office. It’s one of my most favorite quotes ever.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I spent many a sad hour staring at that quote, trying to take it’s message to heart. For those of you have never had the pleasure of attending, law school is primarily about failing. Over and over again. You get knocked down and then pick yourself back up just so you can have someone kick your ass again the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat. For three years. Now that I’m a professor, I keep a copy hanging on the wall of my office, both to serve as inspiration to my students and to constantly remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with failing.
That’s true, you know… Failure is never fun but it’s also not the end of the world. The more you do it, the easier it gets. And each time you do it, you learn something new and make your efforts better for the next go-around.
Maybe the Harper Collins boycott is a bad idea. Maybe it’s a good idea. I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that it’s an idea. If it works it works and if it doesn’t, well… then we all know in the future that a boycott is not a viable option.
Join the boycott if you want to. Don’t if you don’t. Do what your personal beliefs tell you is right thing to do. If you can sleep well at night knowing that you spent your libraries’ funds on Harper Collins eBooks, that’s between you and yours. I certainly hold no judgment either way. And you can be angry if you want to as well. But then you must also get active. And whatever you do, don’t sit around waiting for the perfect solution to land our laps before you decide to get involved.
Know this: no matter what, a boycott of Harper Collins will never be enough to solve all problems libraries face when it comes to eResources. When it fails – it could be an if, but I’m pretty sure it’s a when – don’t you be personally defeated. Pick yourself up and then try something new. Learn from your mistakes. Take the energy and allies you’ve gained in this effort and apply it elsewhere. Work to find other solutions. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Harper Collins is just one cog in a huge machine that we need to fix. The only way it will NEVER get fixed is if we all sit on our hands and do nothing.
By - Friday, March 4, 2011 - 11:21am
I was telling another one of my correspondents yesterday that I really need to stop poking my face into the Harper Collins boycott debates because, as an academic law librarian, it’s not my fight. But that’s not really true. I’m a librarian. I’m a public library patron. I’m a taxpayer. I have a vested interest in making sure that this current issue is discussed and approached in a thoughtful and hopefully successful manner.
But really, this isn’t just a public library issue. This isn’t just an eBook licensing issue. This is just a symptom of a larger problem facing all libraries everywhere. And how it’s approached will inform librarian/vendor relations – all libraries, all vendors – in the future.
Earlier this week, a group of law librarians, legal information vendors and other stakeholders met at the AALL Vendor Colloquium to begin the long process of trying to figure out some solutions. While I have had my issues with the transparency and openness of the event, I’ve always maintained that it was a good idea to get a bunch of people in a room together to see what shakes out. It speaks to a willingness to work together, which is what all members of the information ecosystem need to do if we’re all going to survive.
That’s one of the reasons why I was not too keen on the eBook User Bill of Rights. It seem too confrontational and yet didn’t go far enough. As I mentioned in my previous post, I think we need to include the rights and responsibilities of all involved. What follows is a reaction the #hcod/eBook User Bill of Rights thoughts I’ve seen as well as some ideas that I’ve been generating as a result of reading the AALL Vendor Colloquium public notes. It’s still definitely in the rough, first draft stages. Feel free to add or subtract from it or otherwise tell me I’m full of it.
Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for the Information Age
Content Distributors (aka Vendors, Publishers)
* are not the enemy.
* have the right to be a profitable business. However, they should have accurate business models and not make pricing plans based on guesstimates or short term goals.
* should communicate openly, honestly and often with customers
* should have competitors. A choice between a terrible product and a REALLY terrible product is not a choice at all.
* should provide quality products. Walled garden ebook devices, clunky software, etc are not acceptable. (And on a lighter note, can someone PLEASE invent a stapler that can last through a finals week at an academic library?)
* should engage in fair business practices. Incorrect invoices, barely changed “new editions” are not fair to libraries.
* should respect the role of Content Guardians as preservers of cultural artifacts. Libraries need to purchase ownership rights, not temporary licenses.
* should understand that much intellectual property piracy is a result of laziness on the part of the Content Consumer. Make products that are easy to acquire and use and you will make money. Then you can stop punishing Content Creators and Content Guardians with complicated publishing and licensing agreements.
Content Creators (aka Authors)
* should be able to make a profit from their works. Their intellectual property rights should be protected and enforced.
* should take into consideration those downstream when negotiating publishing deals – e.g. academics should consider OA publishing options, other creators request that their materials are made as technologically open as possible – print, open electronic formats, etc.
Content Consumers (patrons/the general public)
* should respect the intellectual property of Content Creators and Content Distributors. (Piracy is bad, mmmkay?)
* should – via their representative government – sort out the current mess that is intellectual property law in the united states.
* need to decide if having an institution that acts to serve, protect and defend content for the current population and generations to come is important and if so, fund libraries adequately.
Content Guardians (aka librarians)
* should not consider Content Distributors the enemy. Any business negotiations conducted with them should occur in a non-emotional, professional manner.
* have the right to collect and circulate content regardless of the form it takes – DVDs, eBooks, print materials, etc.
* have a duty to preserve cultural artifacts and thus should work to own materials, not just lease or rent them. To do otherwise is poor stewardship of the Content Consumers’ monies.
* act as guides to Content Consumers in the information age – should educate about DRM, for example, and should continually educate themselves so that they can make adequate decisions.
* need to explore alternate business models – purchasing consortiums, shared collections, etc.
* should not rely upon professional organizations to lead the way – they have their uses, but at the end of the day they are also large corporations with business interests to protect and will be conservative in their actions as a result. Much of the change that needs to happen will occur on the grassroots level, individual purchasing decision by individual decision.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/f-r-a-n-k/
By - Wednesday, March 2, 2011 - 3:01pm
As I was telling one of my correspondents yesterday, it feels like a weird coincidence somehow that the AALL Vendor Colloquium, The Harvard/Berkman Center Digital Library Project planning meeting, and the Harper Collins Boycott debate all happened at the same time. Each one is touching on just a segment of the larger issue, to wit, dependence of libraries on vendors in the digital age. And each one shows that we’re not entirely sure what to do next.
Right now the main reaction I’m seeing to these events is anger. Anger at professional associations. Anger at vendors. Anger at each other.
Anger is easy. The human brain is a marvel of evolution, but it maintains characteristics of that creature that first crawled out of the primordial goo. After all this time and change, humans still only have three main reactions to stimuli – the Three Fs: Flee, Fight or…..Ffffffornicate. (You thought I was going to say the other F word, didn’t you???Well, after my post on #hcod earlier this week, I have a lot of new eyes on this blog and I don’t want to scare people off just yet.) Everything that humans feel and do is just a nuanced version of these.
Anger and outrage (and most publicity and protest movements, really) owe more to the Flee feeling than Fight one. It manifests itself as outrage. Or pearl clutching. Or disgust. Or annoyance. Or impatience. Anger diffuses fear and makes one feel as if they’ve accomplished something, even if what they’ve done is no more productive than hiding one’s head in the sand.
I find it maddening. Perhaps ironically for a blogger, I’m tired of listening to people talk about things without any follow through or change. It’s why I ignore most library blogs and discussions and try to concentrate my energies on my day job and other things where I can actually make concrete changes. I’m reminded of Howard Beale’s famous speech in Network
I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
That makes for a great scene in a movie, but nothing changed as a result of this. Actually, if memory serves correctly, the speaker was eventually killed. Not because of his radical ideas, but because his schtick got old and his ratings dropped.
I’m worried that the #hcod, #AALLVC and #ebookrights momentum will be lost to words and no action will ever result. Publishers will still only offer untenable licensing rights for libraries. Professional organizations will still do things the old ways and not embrace transparency initiatives. Demands for rights will be ignored.
(Someone yesterday said that “we don’t need an eBook Bill of Rights. We need a Declaration of Independence.” The history geek in me must note that the Declaration of Independence was only written and signed a year after the actual American Revolutionary War started and was only effective because it had an army (with an assist from allies such as the French) that actually did the fighting and won the war.)
Change will only occur through the fight response. Fighting doesn’t necessarily have to be violent, but does require engaging The Other. That’s hard. Which is why very few people actually choose to take that step.
And here’s where I get stuck and where I have been stuck. I don’t know what form that engagement should take. As I said, I don’t think an economic boycott will work. And I’m not sure that boycotts really are engagement. They may just another form of fleeing. (And as one of my social media shy correspondents shared with me, Harper Collins may choose to play legal hard ball over it and prevent it from starting before it even happens. I’m not saying that HC has a good merit claim..I’m just saying that most people are adverse to being served with legal papers.) I think rallying and educating our patrons and other allies (such as authors) to our cause is a good idea, but libraries are defenders and servants of the defenseless, so our patron allies may have less of a voice than even us. But again, that’s not really engaging the people we need to be engaging – the vendors.
I asked this question not that long ago and got very little response. If you’ve been able to ignore everything up until a few weeks ago, then surely this can be your wake up call. We need a plan B. Something to do after the outrage ends or to do in lieu of outrage.
By - Monday, February 28, 2011 - 10:10pm
Photo Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/16756594@N00/
There was a moment today when I looked at the facts in front of me and became genuinely concerned – for the first time ever – for the continued existence of libraries.
Some background
HarperCollins, book publisher, has told Overdrive, an eBook distributor that is a major supplier of digital content to libraries, that they are only going to let libraries circulate HarperCollins eBooks 26 times. After 26 check outs, presumably the eBook version of Logan’s Run will occur and libraries will have to purchase a new digital copy to circulate.
Librarians are mad. Again. You can follow the public discussion on twitter by searching for the hashtag #HCOD
Besides a lot of angry rhetoric, two interesting things have resulted from this latest vendor/publisher clash. One, an attempt at a boycott of Harper Collins is being organized. Two, Sarah Houghton-Jan (aka The Librarian in Black) has drafted an eBook Users Bill of Rights. (Full text appear at the bottom of this post)
As you may remember, Gentle Reader, I recently wrote about why I think a boycott probably won’t work in law libraries. Law, as a discipline, is constantly being updated and large amounts of money are dependent on law libraries providing correct and up to date information to their patrons. But what about the public libraries? Can they really put enough pressure on publishers to bring them to heel?
WARNING. MATH AND STATISTICS AND NUMBERS AHEAD.
I decided to check out some stats. I really wanted just a basic number…how much of of publishers annual revenue comes from public libraries? It wasn’t immediately obvious or easy to find…so I decided to try and figure it out myself. I have two main sources of information: The American Association of Publishers annual sales report and a Public Libraries survey from the Institute of Museum and Libraries Services (IMLS). Two caveats before we dive in: (1) I am not a trained statistician. Nor am I a public librarian. Nor do I even balance my checkbook. And as my students will tell you, I have problems with basic addition and subtraction. Which is all just a long way of saying, I could be totally wrong and these numbers don’t mean what I think they do. (2) The most recent numbers I could get was from 2008. Given the rise in digital content since then, I’m sure some things have changed even though it’s only 2 year old data.
Okay, deep breath…I’ll put some summaries in along the way for resting points for the math adverse.
According to the AAP, the industry had the following net sales in 2008:
Trade 8,079,423,000
Audio 220,412,000
Religion 723, 872,000
eBooks 113,220,000
Net sales by AAP $ 9,136,927,000
Net sales minus eBooks $9,023,707,000
SUMMARY: The American Publishing Industry nets about 9 Billion dollars a year for print publications. And now for the library numbers…
Total Budgetary Expenditures – 10,724,925,000
Budgetary Expenditures dedicated for Collections- 12.8 % of total or 1,372,790,400
Print Collection Expenditures – 69.3 % of Collections expenditures or 951,343,474
Print and electronic expenditures – 80.6 % of total or $1,106,469,062
Percentage of AAP Net Print Sales Attributable to Libraries – 10.5%
Percentage of AAP electronic and print sales attributable to public libraries – 12.1%
SUMMARY: Public libraries in the U.S. spend a little under a billion dollars a year on print materials. This amounts to about 10 percent of the Publishing Industry’s net print sales.
Total U.S. circulation of materials – 2,277,549,000
Registered borrowers – 166,892,000
Checkouts per borrower – 13.6
Average price of book – $20
Value of library circulation $45,550,980,000
Value of circulation to each borrower: $272.00
SUMMARY: U.S. Libraries circulate about 2 billion items per year. This means each person that has a library card averages about 13 checkouts a year. Given that the average price of a book is about $20 (low estimate), that means the value of materials circulated by libraries is 45 Billion dollars or $270 to each borrower.
If each borrower changed one checkout to purchase – $3,750,063,240
If each borrower bought one eBook at $6.00 – Publishers would get $1,001,352,000.
SUMMARY: If current library users become direct buyers and changed just one check out to a purchase, it would amount to 3.7 Billion dollars in revenue for publishers, or about 4 times what they currently get from libraries in total. If patrons transform one checkout to a digital purchase, that amounts to $1 billion, or roughly pretty close to what libraries spend now.
OKAY, THE MATH IS OVER. YOU CAN LOOK NOW.
Here’s where I got scared this morning. I realized that an economic boycott probably won’t work for libraries. Yes, libraries make up a decent amount of publishers’ customer base, but it’s pretty clear that libraries are a middle man that can easily get cut out of the publishing distribution scheme. Then I had a moment of paranoid delusion where I thought that the publishing industry is deliberately trying to force libraries out distribution chain and the complexity of eBooks and DRM is all part of that plan.
That’s crazy, right? The publishing industry gaslighting libraries? Crazy.
I think.
But anyway, no matter what’s going on here, it appears that while libraries can put some economic pressure on publishers, the industry could survive – and may actually thrive – without libraries getting in the middle. Any negotiations we do will be coming from a position of weakness. Which brings me to the eBook User Bill of Rights…
I don’t like it.
I have a friend that, whenever someone mentions having a social media policy, flips their lid because they think that any general public activities policy/standards of behavior should cover social media activities. In other words, the old content vs. container debate. And I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that this Bill of Rights was limited to just eBooks. I think if you’re going to do it and make a bill of rights, expand it out to all information consumers and types of information.
I also think, that given the weak negotiating position that libraries are in, it’s too confrontational. I think a better way would be to include the Rights and Responsibilities of all participants in the information consumption chain. I’ll be thinking about this more and trying to fill in the pieces myself, but here’s a rough idea:
I see four principle players: Information Consumers (patrons), Information Creators (Authors), Information Distributors (publishers, other vendors) and Information Guardians (I had a hard time coming up with a term for this…Information Maintainers, Information Collectors, Information Preservers, Information Farmers…nothing seemed to adequately cover all that libraries do. The parallels between farmers and librarians is another post for another day, but trust me it’s there.) Information Consumers have the right to expect much of what was said in the eBook User Bill of Rights. But they also have a responsibility to respect the Intellectual property of creators and distributors. Information Creators and Distributors have a right to make money from the Information business. But they also have a responsibility to engage in fair business practices. Information Guardians have a right to preserve, protect and reuse information (within the bounds of the other rules.) It’s going to have to be a balancing act and everyone involved will have to give and take a little. Libraries cannot simply demand to be heard anymore.
ETA: Here’s an expansion of my thoughts.
***********
Here’s the full text of the O.G. eBook User Bill of Rights. Think about them. Build your own.
The eBook User’s Bill of Rights is a statement of the basic freedoms that should be granted to all eBook users.
The eBook User’s Bill of Rights
Every eBook user should have the following rights:
* the right to use eBooks under guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations
* the right to access eBooks on any technological platform, including the hardware and software the user chooses
* the right to annotate, quote passages, print, and share eBook content within the spirit of fair use and copyright
* the right of the first-sale doctrine extended to digital content, allowing the eBook owner the right to retain, archive, share, and re-sell purchased eBooks
I believe in the free market of information and ideas.
I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can flourish when their works are readily available on the widest range of media. I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can thrive when readers are given the maximum amount of freedom to access, annotate, and share with other readers, helping this content find new audiences and markets. I believe that eBook purchasers should enjoy the rights of the first-sale doctrine because eBooks are part of the greater cultural cornerstone of literacy, education, and information access.
Digital Rights Management (DRM), like a tariff, acts as a mechanism to inhibit this free exchange of ideas, literature, and information. Likewise, the current licensing arrangements mean that readers never possess ultimate control over their own personal reading material. These are not acceptable conditions for eBooks.
I am a reader. As a customer, I am entitled to be treated with respect and not as a potential criminal. As a consumer, I am entitled to make my own decisions about the eBooks that I buy or borrow.
I am concerned about the future of access to literature and information in eBooks. I ask readers, authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, software developers, and device manufacturers to support these eBook users’ rights.
These rights are yours. Now it is your turn to take a stand. To help spread the word, copy this entire post, add your own comments, remix it, and distribute it to others. Blog it, Tweet it (#ebookrights), Facebook it, email it, and post it on a telephone pole.
By - Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - 11:33pm
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReservoirDogs
The Houston Association of Law Librarians hosted a panel discussion today on “Alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw.” As I am in the frozen tundra of Chicagoland, I did not attend, of course, but I was able to follow the tweets.
Editorial note: Since I only followed along via twitter and thus have my information second hand, I’m going to try to be very careful with language as it’s not always clear when reading tweets if you’re seeing someone’s personal opinion or if they are just reporting what they heard. With that being said, I don’t necessarily disagree with what was said and I’m not trying to play “gotcha” when I report tweets that conflict (for example). ETA: I also should have said that tweets have a way of oversimplifying a point made. Please check out the comments section for Ed Walters’ clarification of his point. If you’d like to go straight to the source, the video for panel discussion appears here and Ed’s comments are 10 minutes in or so, but I haven’t been able to get it to load – otherwise I would have linked to it when I first composed this.
It was tweeted that Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, said it sends a message to Wexis when libraries renew their subscriptions even though they complain about the large price increase. (Source) Jason Wilson tweeted that librarians need to complain more and that complaining on a listserv is not always the best choice of action. David Curle commented that Walters was holding a mirror up to the audience, which Carl Malamud then retweeted and added the comment “they have met the enemy and they are them!”
Okay. Got that? Great.
Like I said, I don’t disagree with the idea that complaining on a listserv is not the most efficient or useful exercise in library/vendor relations. And we need to break away from the Wexis duopoly. But pointing out what people are doing wrong (or saying that they are not doing enough) without suggesting alternative actions that would be right isn’t that helpful. So, let’s brainstorm here…what exactly are we supposed to be doing? What can we do?
Cancel all West products? That is a romantic idea, but that’s simply not going to happen. As Kama Siegel noted, sometimes we’re not the ones making purchasing decisions. Even if we are, libraries are in the business of providing information to our patrons – in the cases of firms and corporate libraries, they do as part of a business. We can’t simply “go on strike” for acquisitions, especially in a discipline like law which is constantly being updated and created and analyzed. Libraries can’t break from West until we have a viable alternative.
I know the current situation can’t go on forever, but I’m also not sure how to stop it. Pressure from organizations? (On whom? What does “pressure” mean?) Consortiums engaging in an “acquisitions slowdown” and collaborative collection development? Wikileaks our Wexis contracts? Other ideas? Let’s hear it.
ETA: I’m glad Ed clarified his comments. As it turns out, he was oversimplified by the twitter medium. But even if he was being interpreted correctly, I wouldn’t have really disagreed. And this is far from the only time something along the lines of “librarians should do more than complain” has been said. I say it myself a lot! I really am looking for more ideas of concrete steps we (meaning librarians) can take. The UC/Nature dispute of last year gave me some hope, but our information creation stream is slightly different than other disciplines. (We can’t ask the government to stop creating laws and the writers of most of our secondary materials don’t do it for free and provide free labor like most academic writing.) So….what can we do?
