E-Books and Libraries

A recent survey conducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today Inc., found that of 1,201 libraries polled in North America, 41 percent report an increase in patron requests for e-books over the past year.1 Individual libraries see this reflected in increased demand for OverDrive's downloadable books service and NetLibrary's digital titles. Publishers and libraries are working through the challenges of compatibility, digital rights management (DRM), and format types, among other issues, and are seeking creative ways to develop a model that provides the service to library patrons. Digital rights management for e-books, in the form of copy protection to satisfy publishers' desires not to see unauthorized copies proliferate, should be largely invisible, platform-independent, and serve only to prevent the creation of additional complete unauthorized copies.