The (much deserved) hype surrounding the iPhone has spread to the publishing world. HarperCollins has released 14 Books for the iPhone. This lame attempt is unlikely to finally get ebooks right (an impossible task in our highly DRMed world), and might get people excited for only a limited amount of time. I do see the iPhone as an interesting piece of the eBook puzzle, though, considering it is the first high PPI device that people are carrying around on a daily basis.

I read about this right before I read Jessamyn’s post (with comments worth reading) about Overdrive, audiobooks, and the iPod. I love her attitude about making the most of a crappy DRM situation and using the inevitable patron iPod denial as a teachable moment about free audiobooks online.

Similarly, I doubt libraries will be circing titles to patron iPhones anytime soon. Instead we can tell them about Project Gutenberg and iPhone formatted PDFs from manybooks.net.

I came home from getting my hairs cut yesterday and saw the ListenIllinois website on displayed on my monitor. After adding 2 and 2, I figured that my father-in-law, who was crashing at our place for a few days, was looking at which books are available. He has recently retired, but before he did he was an avid audiobook listener when he traveled for work. Evidently he’s listened to nearly 1,000 books on tape and CD. (!) Now that he’s traveling for fun full-time, he needs some sort of audiobook solution that doesn’t include having to return materials on time. That’s what the new 60GB iPod sitting on the desk is for. He really must trust me, leaving that thing around. I won’t be able to put any library audio eBook content on his iPod. ListenIllinois runs on authorized-only Audible compatible players. And if you’ve read any of the audio eBook conversation going on, you know that content from OverDrive and Recorded Books - soon to be integrated into ListenIllinois’ catalog - won’t work on iPods because they are Windows Media Audio files.

Ok, I know that libraries shouldn’t alienate iPod users (it is kinda sad that the state librarian of Hawaii had to apologize to iPod users) and I know that libraries
should still be circulating players and books to patrons but I don’t want to get into that discussion here.*

What interested me about all of this was his assumption about how audio ebooks from a library would work. Moments like these are insights into how people think libraries operate and are valuable.

One very simple way to manufacture these moments of insight is to listen to your users. When they ask something about the library, or have an incorrect assumption, it isn’t because they’re stupid, its because they have different expectations of the library. If one person thinks that, for instance, your public computers ought to have WordPerfect as well as Word, maybe more people feel the same way. And maybe this is because Dell, one of the top (quantity-wise) producers of PCs in the world stopped providing as many pre-installed copied of MS Office on computers, and rather includes WordPerfect (true story). Take these expectations seriously, because they just might be logical, employ the path of least resistance, or save the time of the reader.

*Okay, maybe I want to have that conversation here. Much like J.K. Rowling’s piracy-begging refusal to release a HP6 eBook (HP6 scanned, proofread, and online in 12 hours after being released) and her piracy-begging exorbitant price for a HP6 audio eBook (bootlegs HP6 audiobook available) all of this audio eBook DRM madness is going to force me to, guess what? To meet the audiobooks needs of my father-in-law, I’ll either rip books from CD to MP3, download from people who have already done this, or, if I’m really desperate, burn Overdrive content to CD, then rip to MP3.

The thing that really, really gets to me about this situation (and our OPAC situation) is how we’re pretty much forced to endure the whimsy of the industry (and deal with many institutionalized hurdles). Let’s not let this impotence lead to apathy, pretty please?

Just to see how the process would go, I decided to download an audiobook from the iTunes Music Store today and convert it into a circulable package. Why? While slightly more staff time intensive, buying audiobooks this way could be cheaper. Also there’s the whole books on mp3 issue that we’re trying to figure out. I like the program in which we’re currently participating, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t poke around, right?

Here’s how it went. I selected the title and downloaded it. I next loaded the downloaded mp3s into a playlist and burn. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but it was. When burning music from a playlist, if there is more than one CD’s worth of content, the program prompts the user to cancel or have the music burn on multiple CDs. It did indeed prompt me, but then alerted me to the fact that burning across CDs wasn’t allowed with content purchased from the ITMS. It also suggested that I just burn one book section at time, which I did. These individual sections (there were three for Dress Your Family…) burned across 2 CDs each actually.* Whilst the CDs were burning, I prepared packaging for the BOCD.

I coped and pasted the artwork from the ITMS into photoshop, and printed it out. I could not, however, copy and paste the (Booklist and LJ) blurbs from the ITMS. My highlighting/copy function was disabled. At this point I said to myself, “Ha! Doesn’t the ITMS know that I’m a librarian and have special content from these library sources?!” So I surfed on over to amazon.com and copied the Booklist blurb into a document and printed it. After throwing down some chicken scratch labeling the CDs, I was done.

Here’s a gallery of the DIY ITMS Audiobook

It turned out fine with pretty much no effort. I’m sure our tech services people could make it look very professional.

Here are some numbers regarding the process:

-Cost of audiobook from the ITMS: $16.95

-Time spent downloading the (6+ hour ) audiobook from the iTunes Music Store: 9 minutes

-Number of CDs: 5

-Time to burn each CD: 3 minutes each

Let’s say that the entire thing took about 30 minutes**. Processing a BOCD takes some time, but maybe not this much. Perhaps this takes twice as long. So, how much money would this extra 15 minutes save us? Well, in this case, sadly, not too much. Amazon lists this same item for $21.75 (plus shipping), and we could buy it from our jobber for $17.59. I suspect that there are a number of issues involved with these figures. Maybe some books can only be found unabridged from, say, recorded books. Perhaps it is the case that anything to be found, unabridged, on the ITMS can also be found through our jobber or amazon. I would love to be able to save money using the ITMS, but at this point I’m not sure it’ll happen.

Other thoughts:
It would be nice to have audiobook content on a computer, ready to be burned to replace scratched CDs. I suppose this could be accomplished by ripping CDs purchased, which would be a slight reversal of the whole downloading from the ITMS process.

One advantage that our current books on mp3 program, ListenIllinois has over downloading from the ITMS and circulating on an mp3 player is an interface. Take a look at ListenIllinois’ site and you’ll find that it looks good and works well. This wouldn’t be the easist thing for a library to replicate.

The key to all of this will be sitting down to figure out if there is unabridged content on the ITMS can be downloaded for less than purchased elsewhere. It seems like the majority of their content is from Audible (as is the case with ListenIllinois), but I don’t know if content direct from them is as easy to burn onto CDs. Anyone know?

*Except for the last section, which was short.

**Note: this is a relatively short book. All of this would take longer for a longer book.

After the Film Discussion Group flap I received an IM from a supportive patron. I doubt she knew how excited I was to A) get some more supportive communication and B) receive that communication through IM.

During our conversation the patron mentioned some of the things that she enjoys about the library, one of which was audiobooks. I then took a moment, as I’m apt to do, to promote Listen Illinois, the books on mp3 program in which we’re participating. She liked the idea of this and told me she’d IM me later when she had put together a book basket. I placed a hold on the player for her and she IMed me shortly after.

As if this wasn’t great enough, when the player became available for her I noticed that she was online. I sent her an IM letting her know that I downloaded her items into the mp3 player, which was ready for pickup. The next day I came into the library and noticed that the mp3 player had been circulated.

Textbook!

Audible.com and Sprint PCS have teamed up to offer audiobooks on phones. This is exciting but nerve-racking. It would sure be terrible if people thought about getting digital audiobooks on their phone before getting them through a library.

Read “Audible and Sprint Debut Co-Marketing Program with Availability of the Sprint PCS Vision Smart Device SP-i600 By Samsung” from Business Wire [via textually.org]

Yesterday a patron called looking for Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich. She was in the process of listening to the book with our book on tape when the last tape decided to fail. When she called she was in the car en route eventually to the library. I told her to see me when she arrived and that I would place a hold on the title for her, or tell her where she could go to get the item herself.

After we disconnected I had the idea to check Listen Illinois, the books on MP3 program in which we’re participating. Lo and behold, the title in need was available, as was an MP3 player. I created a book basket for the patron, downloaded the title and put it onto the player. When she arrived she immediatly inquired if I was able to find the book nearby. She was anxious to complete the story. I responded that I was able to do better than that, told her that I had it on an MP3 player for her, and explained about the program.

“Boy, will my son be proud of me,” she exclaimed. She also commented that she enjoyed the small size of the Audible Otis player.

I was pleased with the whole exchange and I’m going to make it a point to find more of these “introductory moments”* where I haven’t really looked before.

*This concept is essentially like the concept of the teachable moment except nothing really is taught. In place, services or technologies (in this case library related) are introduced.

Last evening I was looking through an audiobook hub of a p2p file sharing network. Yes, purely for academic purposes. As I logged on I read the introductory notes written by the hub moderators. There were the usual audiobook requests, swaps announced, but I noticed something vastly more interesting. The nefarious users of the audiobook hub have organized an online book discussion*. Libraries take note. There is a market for online book discussions. Online book discussions make sense for people who use audiobooks. Often people who use audiobooks are busy individuals, so being able to participate in a discussion without having to travel anywhere special might be appealing to them.

It must be said however, that years ago the library at which I worked organized an email book discussion with the library’s sister library Down Under. Perhaps it was a lack of promotion, but the project was dud. If I had to blame something, it would be email. Does anyone enjoy using email? It might solve the problem of distance, but it doesn’t take the best part of conversations into account: the fact that they are in real time.

If anyone has library experience with online book discussions, I’d like to hear about it!.

*The book is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon which I happen to have read. If the timing works out, I’m going to participate so I can see how it compares to other book discussions.

Have you ever said something that you wish you could take back? That’s how I think many libraries feel about the whole eBook fiasco. Certainly that issue doesn’t need to be rehashed here, but I do want to mention an impact that I percieve it has had on technology in libraries. Namely, I think that libraries are slightly nervous to stick their necks out again.

Perhaps we can use the eBook event to learn about how we should think about acquiring new technologies. Wouldn’t you agree that eBooks were largely pushed by the people selling them? It wasn’t the case that readers were clammering for them. In fact, the late 90s incarnation of eBook readers were met with resistance from readers. People, including many librarians, hated them. Sure, libraries should guide their patrons through the process of exploring new technologies, but shouldn’t (and cannot successfully) force technologies. Think here of OPACs and many older users. They are still talking about not having the card catalog. This is what happens when we try to mandate the use of technologies.

Libraries cannot, however, be blind to present or upcoming consumer driven trends in technology. The mp3 (or other similar digital audio formats*) certainly falls within this category. EBook readers were never heavily featured in the adverts from every consumer electronics store. There were some, but nowhere near how mp3 players are being featured. People are using this technology. The audiobook (in tape and CD format) is already proven as viable and necessary format for libraries to circulate.

These facts indicate that exploring books on mp3 as a format isn’t that risky. Certainly the technology will mature a bit more, but the biggest changes will be the pricing, DRM, circulation, and download models that are available to libraries.

If you think your administration might be resistant to the idea of books on mp3 at your library, and you think that your community would use the format, perhaps some of these thoughts can help you convince them otherwise.

**For instance: .wav, .aac, .ogg, .wma, .shn, .ape. It is not crucial to know how these all differ, but it is important to realize that an mp3 file extention (.mp3) isn’t the only type of digitial audio format going around.

A staff member here finally got her hands on one of our MP3 players after having to wait a few weeks. Upon checking it out she asked, “How long can I have this for? Two weeks?” She was concerned about finishing the book she had on the player. Funny thing is that I saw her the next day and she was nearly done with the book. She said it had made walking, gardening, and cleaning very enjoyable. I loaded another title on the player immediately. Who knows? She might listen to 5 (or more) books during her 2 week period.

With any luck she’ll mention her zeal for books on mp3 to the knitting club next thursday and they’ll all place holds. Getting staff acquainted with new technoligies and training them to use it is good for a number of reasons. Patron questions are more easily fielded, for one. Also, at smaller libraries, or any library where employees live in the community, staff are great marketers. If they are excited about books on mp3 or wireless in the library, they’ll spread the word to their friends and neighbors. Rick here (my own personal zen reference guru) saw two ‘evangelists’ speak at PLA (for MSFT and Real), so why can’t we have them too? Well, besides the fact that it is a creepy title.

I can see it now: I’ll be riding my bike through town, proclaming the joys of the library. I went to the library and I saw the light. I’ve been SAVED! No more will I be burdened by my T-Mobile iniquties at Starbucks, no longer will I fruitlessly caress my keyboard calling upon google, no more will I be enchained by 14 cassettes for an audiobook. I have been freed by the library!

Although the vast majority of comments about our books on mp3 program have been positive, we did get a negative one today. A patron thought the quality of sound coming from the Audible Otis wasn’t very good. My suspicion is that the volume on the player was set low, forcing the car radio’s volume to be high. I tested this out, and it indeed sounded poor.

There is a statement about this on the handout circulated in the package, but one mustn’t have made it in there for this circ.

I’m not sweating it. Can’t please everyone.