Free Range Librarian › Between an ebook and a hard place

Via Scoop.it – The Ischool library learningland

“As Steve Lawson observes, publishers can get away with limiting access, so they limit it. As Kate Sheehan points out in a comment on her own post, publishers can cut us out of the conversation, so they cut us out. Though it has been proven time and again that library reading boosts individual book sales, that’s not good enough for for the publisher-industrial complex. They smell an opportunity, and their greed is overwhelming any vestige of decency or sense of social fairness. Deep down, the publishing-industrial complex will not be satisfied until they can do away with those pesky librarians, they who broker reading as a public good, champion the right to read, and advocate for equitable access. Penguin invoked the term “friction,” in reference to the ease of checking out books; but I see the real “friction” as the Bonus Army of librarians, authors, and readers who are speaking truth to power. How convenient it would be if we were starved out of the reading ecology. We’re also back to my ancient observation about Google: “don’t be evil” does not translate into “do be good.” What is to be done?”
Via freerangelibrarian.com