Joanna Trollope explains the independent review into e-book lending in libraries
>> JOANNA TROLLOPE: I honestly think that
e-reading is just another way of reading and it's a most magnificent way of reading on
the move. It has to be accommodated, not fought. It's ridiculous to fight it. I don't think
e-lending is altogether a problem.
I think getting it right and getting it both disciplined
it its present form and enabling it to go and develop and flourish in the future is
the difficulty. I think we're just slightly - the horse has not exactly bolted but it's
on it's way out of the stable and we want to do something before it gets any further.
I have to say that authors are only a tiny part of this enormous problem of e-lending
and libraries because of course booksellers are understandably extremely anxious and how
do we reassure them? Publishers have to find a new way to be excited and enticed, if you
like, about this new way of borrowing. We have to decide, for example, do you have to
be in the library building in order to borrow an e-book? Is that a way of disciplining the
borrowing and gauging how many lends there are? Furthermore to that, should there be
a limited number of each e-volume of a book within a library, so that it isn't an infinite
kind of free-for-all? Because, you see, if you allow free downloading, in the end
there is no trickle down of money to pay a writer to write in the first place. That's
the difficulty about all the freedom available now, as the music industry discovered to its
cost and we're very, very anxious to avoid that.
Obviously booksellers are going to be very
unnerved by the idea of free lending, particularly remote e-lending, so they have to be not only
represented on the panel, which they are, but also listened to very carefully because
it is a very valid concern. And we are looking into the idea of possibly e-lending from a
library being accompanied by some sort of discounted purchase from a local retailer.
We have no idea whether this will work or what the nuts and bolts will look like, but this
is one of the ideas that we are throwing about. We're looking at this problem now because
we really can't waste another minute and we're going to do it extremely quickly. We're going
to have meetings about this situation this autumn and the report will be out within the first
two months of next year because the digital world is moving so quickly that we are racing
to try and put just something that helps people and enables people and enriches people in
place before the whole thing's run away with all of us.
We're at a stage where we'd be
really, really grateful for questions to be answered, or points of view to be put from
anybody interested in this whole question, particularly the professionals. And the way
you do that is just to go to the DCMS website and to click on the relevant box to answer
the questions or to put a point of view. And please do it, and as soon as possible
because this is the opinion gathering part of the whole business..
e-reading is just another way of reading and it's a most magnificent way of reading on
the move. It has to be accommodated, not fought. It's ridiculous to fight it. I don't think
e-lending is altogether a problem.
I think getting it right and getting it both disciplined
it its present form and enabling it to go and develop and flourish in the future is
the difficulty. I think we're just slightly - the horse has not exactly bolted but it's
on it's way out of the stable and we want to do something before it gets any further.
I have to say that authors are only a tiny part of this enormous problem of e-lending
and libraries because of course booksellers are understandably extremely anxious and how
do we reassure them? Publishers have to find a new way to be excited and enticed, if you
like, about this new way of borrowing. We have to decide, for example, do you have to
be in the library building in order to borrow an e-book? Is that a way of disciplining the
borrowing and gauging how many lends there are? Furthermore to that, should there be
a limited number of each e-volume of a book within a library, so that it isn't an infinite
kind of free-for-all? Because, you see, if you allow free downloading, in the end
there is no trickle down of money to pay a writer to write in the first place. That's
the difficulty about all the freedom available now, as the music industry discovered to its
cost and we're very, very anxious to avoid that.
Obviously booksellers are going to be very
unnerved by the idea of free lending, particularly remote e-lending, so they have to be not only
represented on the panel, which they are, but also listened to very carefully because
it is a very valid concern. And we are looking into the idea of possibly e-lending from a
library being accompanied by some sort of discounted purchase from a local retailer.
We have no idea whether this will work or what the nuts and bolts will look like, but this
is one of the ideas that we are throwing about. We're looking at this problem now because
we really can't waste another minute and we're going to do it extremely quickly. We're going
to have meetings about this situation this autumn and the report will be out within the first
two months of next year because the digital world is moving so quickly that we are racing
to try and put just something that helps people and enables people and enriches people in
place before the whole thing's run away with all of us.
We're at a stage where we'd be
really, really grateful for questions to be answered, or points of view to be put from
anybody interested in this whole question, particularly the professionals. And the way
you do that is just to go to the DCMS website and to click on the relevant box to answer
the questions or to put a point of view. And please do it, and as soon as possible
because this is the opinion gathering part of the whole business..
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