I wanted to write something about e-books and libraries for my 23 Things Report. I found this interesting report. This is the cite in APA style:
Zickuhr, K., Rainie, L., Purcell, K., Madden, M., Brenner, J., & Pew Internet & American Life, P. (2012). Libraries, Patrons, and E-Books. Pew Internet & American Life Project,
Here is the abstract:
This report explores the world of e-books and libraries, where libraries fit into these book-consumption patterns of Americans, when people choose to borrow their books and when they choose to buy books. It examines the potential frustrations e-book borrowers can encounter when checking out digital titles, such as long wait lists and compatibility issues. Finally, it looks at non-e-book-borrower interest in various library services, such as preloaded e-readers or instruction on downloading e-books. To understand the place e-reading, e-books, and libraries have in Americans' evolving reading habits, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given the Pew Internet Project a grant to study this shifting digital terrain. Libraries have traditionally played a key role in the civic and social life of their communities, and this work is aimed at understanding the way that changes in consumer behavior and library offerings might affect that unique relationship between libraries and communities. Findings include: (1) 12% of readers of e-books borrowed an e-book from the library in the past year. But a majority of Americans do not know that this service is provided by their local library; (2) E-book borrowers appreciate the selection of e-books at their local library, but they often encounter wait lists, unavailable titles, or incompatible file formats; (3) Many Americans would like to learn more about borrowing e-books; (4) 58% of Americans have a library card, and 69% say that their local library is important to them and their family; (5) Library card holders are more than twice as likely to have bought their most recent book than to have borrowed it from a library. Many e-book borrowers purchase e-books, too; (6) Library card holders use more technology, and they report that they read more books; and (7) Leading-edge librarians and patrons say that the advent of e-books has produced a major transformation in book searching and borrowing at libraries. (Contains 66 footnotes.)
When I read the abstract, I thought that this report would be relevant and up to date. It does not appear to have a print version available at USF. This wasn't important to me because this was a project on the Web 2.0 paradigm and an electronic version would seem to fit what I was trying to describe in the first place.
A full online version of this 80 page report was available only through ERIC, the Education Resource Information Center. The USF catalogue record had a link to the report. When I clicked on it, this is what I got instead of my report:
Dear ERIC Community,
In early August we discovered that sensitive personally identifiable information appeared in some full text documents contained in the ERIC collection. Specifically, social security numbers and other highly sensitive information were found in multiple documents and in a way that could not easily be isolated. For that reason, we had to temporarily disable access to many full text documents.
Although these documents had been publicly available in microfiche for many years, the advent of Internet search engines has made it easier to find this information. Our number one concern is to ensure that any full-text documents we provide do not violate any individual's privacy. We believe that if any of us were to have our privacy compromised by an ERIC document, we would want the same consideration.
We are seeking to restore access to documents as soon as possible. In order to restore access to ERIC, we have to check every document to see if it contains personally identifiable information. Due to the quality of many of the documents, a large portion of the search has to be done by hand. This is a large undertaking and we are in the process of hiring a team to help restore access in a fast and responsive manner. We hope to get this team in place by late September and releasing large numbers of ERIC documents by the end of October. We will continue to release documents after that point on a rolling basis.
To minimize the burden on our users, we will prioritize searching the documents that users request. If you would like to request a PDF to be returned online, please email ERICRequests@ed.gov with the record number (such as ED263102). Documents will be returned on a rolling basis and may take several weeks, but we are working as fast as possible.
We are sorry for the inconvenience and want to thank you for bearing with us through this unexpected delay.
The ERIC Team
This seemed to be a perfect example for many things Web 2.0. First, with digital media, searching through documents is easier, faster, and more efficient than searching through traditional text resources. Second, the ease and efficiency of digital text search also makes it easier to find a person's private information, also making it easier to commit identity theft. Three, digital information is not always available. Four, digital information can be made unavailable quickly. Any sense of permanance is wielded by the person or group in charge of the data, usually at a centralized location.
However, like all librarians do, I did find the information. Here's the link to the report:
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/06/22/libraries-patrons-and-e-books/
No comments:
Post a Comment