For those wondering, yes, the material described in this article from
Overdrive in Cleveland is accessible with screen reader technology.  it is
available to blind library patrons in the cities mentioned in the article
and users of talking book and Braille programs in the United States at
selected regional libraries, including Illinois.

Kelly

    The New York Times

    December 9, 2004

    Libraries Reach Out, Online

By TIM GNATEK

    THE newest books in the New York Public Library don't take up any
shelf space.

    They are electronic books - 3,000 titles' worth - and the library's
1.8 million cardholders can point and click through the collection at www
.nypl.org, choosing from among best sellers, nonfiction, romance novels
and self-help guides. Patrons borrow them for set periods, downloading
them for reading on a computer, a hand-held organizer or other device
using free reader software. When they are due, the files are automatically
locked out - no matter what hardware they are on - and returned to
circulation, eliminating late fees.

    In the first eight days of operation in early November, and with
little fanfare, the library's cardholders - from New York City and New
York state and, increasingly, from elsewhere - checked out more than 1,000
digital books and put another 400 on waiting lists (the library has a
limited number of licenses for each book).

    E-books are only one way that libraries are laying claim to a massive
online public as their newest service audience. The institutions are
breaking free from the limitations of physical location by making many
kinds of materials and services available at all times to patrons who are
both cardholders and Web surfers, whether they are homebound in the
neighborhood or halfway around the world.

    For years, library patrons have been able to check card catalogs
online and do things like reserve or renew books and pay overdue fines.
Now they can not only check out e-books and audiobooks but view movie
trailers and soon, the actual movies.

    And they can do it without setting foot in the local branch.

    "The lending model is identical to what libraries already have," said
Steve Potash, president of OverDrive, which provides the software behind
the e-book programs in New York City, White Plains, Cleveland and
elsewhere. "But lending is 24/7. You can borrow from anywhere and have
instant, portable access to the collection."

    At the same time, libraries are leveraging technology - including
wireless networks that are made available at no charge to anyone who wants
to use them - to draw people to their physical premises.

    Library e-books are not new - netLibrary, an online-only e-book
collection for libraries, has operated since 1998 - but the New York
Public Library decided to wait for software that would let users read
materials on hand-held devices, freeing them from computers.

    "The key was portability," said Michael Ciccone, who heads
acquisitions at the library. "It needs to be a book-like experience."

    E-books' short history has already begun to yield some lessons. At the
Cleveland Public Library, Patricia Lowrey, head of technical services,
thought technical manuals and business guides would be in greatest demand.

    "We were dead wrong on that," Ms. Lowrey said. "There are a lot of
closet romance readers in cyberspace."

    She saw patrons check out the same kinds of materials rotating in the
physical collection. The e-books librarians like best, according to Ms.
Lowrey, are the digitized guides and workbooks for standardized tests,
which in printed form are notorious for deteriorating quickly or
disappearing altogether.

    Cleveland's success with e-books encouraged librarians there to expand
to audiobooks in November, when OverDrive introduced software to allow
downloads of audiobooks. "We had 28 audiobooks checked out in the first
six hours, with no publicity at all," Ms. Lowrey said.

    The OverDrive audiobook software encodes audiobooks from suppliers'
source material, such as compact discs or cassettes, packages the stories
into parts with Windows Media technology, and manages patrons' downloads.
Borrowers can listen using a computer while online or offline; the books
can also be stored on portable players or burned to CD's.

    The King County Library System in Washington State, which serves
communities like Redmond and Bellevue and the computer-savvy workers at
local companies like Microsoft and Boeing, has also embraced both e-books
and audiobooks.

    In November, the King County libraries added 634 audiobooks to the
8,500 e-books in its catalog (www.kcls.org). With no publicity at all, 200
of the audiobooks had already been checked out. "As soon as people find
out about it, it will be extremely popular," said Bruce Schauer, the
library's associate director of collections.

    At the King County Library System's Web site, patrons can watch film
trailers and reserve titles, which they can pick up at a branch. Before
long, they can expect to be able to borrow entire movies online.

    Mr. Potash of OverDrive says the company plans to release such a video
program for libraries by next summer.

    Posting electronic versions of libraries' holdings is only part of the
library's expanding online presence. Library Web sites are becoming
information portals. Many, like the Saint Joseph's County Library in South
Bend, Ind., have created Web logs as community outreach tools.

    Others are customizing their Web sites for individual visitors. The
Richmond Public Library in British Columbia ( www.yourlibrary.ca), for
example, offers registered users ways to track books and personal
favorites, or receive lists of suggested materials, much like the
recommendation service at Amazon.

    Other libraries have moved their book clubs online. Members of the
online reading group at the public library in Lawrence, Kan., (
www.lawrence.lib.ks.us) receive book passages by e-mail and discuss them
in an online forum.

    "Libraries have been very enthusiastic adopters of technology," said
Patricia Stevens, the director of cooperative initiatives at the Online
Computer Library Center, an international cooperative with some 50,000
libraries that share digital resources.

    The center, which recently acquired the netLibrary e-book service,
plans to announce a downloadable audiobook package with the audiobook
publisher Recorded Books this month. It also provides add-on Web site
programs that put traditional librarians' functions on the Internet. "The
services found inside a library are now online," Ms. Stevens said. "And
the trend is to continue moving to remote self-service."

    An example is QuestionPoint, a creation of the Online Computer Library
Center and the Library of Congress that offers live 24-hour assistance
from cooperative librarians via a chat service. More than 1,500 libraries
worldwide make remote reference help available through QuestionPoint,
which recently consolidated with a similar program, the 24/7 Reference
Project, started by the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System in
Southern California.

    Another library IM tool, Tutor.com, is geared for a younger audience,
helping children with their homework. More than 600 library sites offer
the program, which matches students with tutors, whether for help reducing
fractions or diagramming sentences. More than 105,000 tutoring sessions
have been logged in the United States since September.

    But libraries' investments in online services are aimed at more than
just remote users. They are also adding technology inside their buildings
to draw community members in. Despite all the modernization, old-fashioned
formulas still matter.

    "Most libraries measure success by using circulation, so if you check
out a book, that's good for us," said Ms. Lowrey of the Cleveland Public
Library. "There might be a door counter as well, so if you come in to use
a wireless connection or a PC, we're watching those numbers as well."

    In Sacramento, the library system has drummed up interest by holding
several after-hours video game parties in which teenagers gather to play
networked games like Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II.

    Always on the lookout for the kernel of learning to be found in the
fun, the librarians have matched the game play with reading material.

    "We saw the Star Wars game as providing a great tie-in to books," said
Suzy Murray, youth services librarian for Sacramento's Carmichael branch.
"Teen boys, in addition to being voracious consumers of video games, are
also huge fans of science fiction, so the connection seemed very natural."

    But one of the most effective uses of technology to entice visitors,
librarians say, is turning the building into a wireless hot spot.

    For less than $1,000, a library can set up a wireless network and draw
the public in for free-range Internet access.

    The Wireless Librarian ( people.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/wireless)
lists more than 400 such library hot spots in the United States.

    Michele Hampshire, Web librarian for the library in Mill Valley, the
woodsy San Francisco suburb, logs an average of 15 wireless users a day on
the library's high-speed connection. "We're not collecting personal
information; we don't put filters on, you don't even need a library card,"
Ms. Hampshire said.

    She and other librarians do not consider the rise of online access a
threat, Ms. Hampshire said. Rather, it will allow librarians to spend less
time and money reshelving books and reordering supplies, and more time
helping online and in-person visitors to find materials.

    " Google will never replace me," she said.


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