December 2013: From the Director's Chair



kingstonpubliclibrary.org

As the holiday season approaches, many people will be receiving an e-reader as a gift or they may be upgrading their existing device. This will mean an increase in demand for e-materials, including e-books, e-magazines, and e-audios, for all ages and for all subject areas. As much as the library wants to exceed your expectations, there are some challenges currently involved with the purchase of e-materials for libraries. 
First and foremost, some publishers do not allow libraries to buy e-materials. Although you might search Amazon and find a bestseller available for your Kindle, this same title may not be available for the library to purchase. We do our best to search all available vendors, but often publishers make decisions to not allow libraries to purchase particular titles.
 
Secondly, costs and usage play large parts in the e-materials challenge. For example, many popular titles, such as Inferno by Dan Brown, may cost the library $15-$20 for a traditional hardback, but may cost almost $85 in e-book format. In other cases, the library may purchase an e-book with the stipulation that it may only check out twenty-six times. For the twenty-seventh patron, that item no longer exists in our system. In still other cases, such as the Harry Potter series, e-books may be checked out for up to five years before disappearing from our system. We continue to increase our budget in this area to meet the demand of patrons as well as increasing e-materials costs.
 
Third, finding e-materials in our library catalog can be rather difficult and inconvenient. Currently our online catalog vendor is developing a method of integrating our e-materials with our traditional library materials. But until then, you as a patron may have to search three separate vendors (Overdrive, Axis 360, One Click Digital) to find a e-materials title that interests you. Our goal is to make your searching experience more streamlined and convenient.
 
All three of the above mentioned vendors are located on our webpage (http://martinsburg.lib.wv.us) under the Electronic Resources tab.
 
We have also added Zinio to our list of electronic resources. With this site you an access and download digital magazines to your e-reader or device. You can select from over 270 titles which cover a variety of topics.
 
We appreciate the patron who understands the cost of ordering e-materials and donated $250.00 for this purpose. Any similar help would be welcomed!