Yesterday, I raised several issues about raising the bar for all through knowledge provided by access to books, whether through brick & mortar or e-book lending. In discussing this with my eight-year-old son, he was able to suggest a mechanism for solving these problems.
First, to lend a book, simply add an option called ‘Lend To’ in the drop-down, above which appears
For ‘Give To’ the same mechanism, but the book is now no longer your property – you have essentially passed ownership on to the individual.
Clearly with Apple being a significant player in this market, we’ll need an iBooks based solution as well as transfer mechanisms for other e-book providers.
On my last point – while I was writing this - Amazon announced that they would be providing a library lending capability through the OverDrive App – but the details I have read do leave something to be desired. The key one that jumped out was that a book could only be borrowed 28 times before it ‘expired’ – that seems like too low a number – shouldn’t the equivalent be however many times a good hard cover book gets loaned out before needing replacing? But with the Overdrive App out there providing a large part of the ‘Library’ function I was looking for, we go some way towards closing the gap I was afraid was appearing.
As technologists and business people, it is our responsibility to consider the complete picture of our creations and initiatives, otherwise we risk contributing to the further stratification of our society/world between a have-all and have-none culture as Joseph Stiglitz describes in his article in this May 2011 edition of Vanity Fair, in which he points out:
While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.
That outcome is not a good one for society in general. Knowledge is a key to prosperity and easy access to knowledge a requirement for a healthy society. As we enter the world of e-books, making sure that everyone has an ability to read what they need in order to grow and develop, is something that we must think through — as well as the full ramifications thereof.
7 comments:
As this industry takes shape, there are some clear barriers to entry for end users, namely finances and access to product. The struggle also extends to the providers, each vying for format dominance and development of what will become "the" standard. It will be very interesting to watch this unfold.
Tony, it's particularly interesting in the context of limited resources on the planet juxtaposed against increasing demand for products. It seems to me the playing field, by necessity, has to be in the virtual realms.
This is a great debate topic. While reading, I wondered how many times a book is borrowed from a library before it is discarded or removed from the shelf? Robbie addressed the same question. I called our local, school district and asked about text books in a classroom and the life of the books..a shocking, 2 school years! Unfortunately, the library has been closed in our city so I can't check on that. It could very possibly be that the life of a book borrowed from a library, could be equal to 28 rentals?? I have faith in our country, in our systems, and in its survival. I must also have this faith in Apple, as that would be the last stock I'd sell!
Thank you for this post, Robbie. I love the suggestions from your son! These are important issues that need to be carefully addressed and thought through. Thank you for starting the conversation.
Access to education and literacy ought to be ubiquitous. As we forge deeper into the digital age, I hope that we can be mindful of this and take those steps necessary to grant broad access to eBooks across all demographics as Robbie suggests. Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
Thank you for these insights, Robbie. Your points are useful for better understanding the intricacies of the E-book world.
It marvellous to see Brazil bridge that gap between rich and poor as this is the only way the economy could grow by people having access to literature.
Post a Comment