The Google deal ends next January, but the ABA says it is certain to find alternative means for selling e-books before then. "We know that our volume of e-book sales has been modest," Teicher said in his letter; "We also know that being able to offer e-books to your customers is an indispensable feature of any bookstore's web offerings." The failed Google partnership highlights a continuing reality: It is no longer viable to consider digital sales as marginal, so the independents have to learn to market eBooks in whatever formats are devised. From what I understand, only a handful of stores made the full-on effort to draw customers to download from them. Quality delivery and technical support will be essential components in the success of bookstores going forward. The magnitude and implications of the Department of Justice's lawsuit adds yet another component of pressure on the booksellers to find the means to compete with the vast resources of the digital behemoths. The task is formidable.

LIBRARIES AND DIGITAL READING

The New York Public Library has a key committee drawn from the Board of Trustees called the Task Force on the Virtual Future, a high-powered group grappling with how to integrate e-books into the traditional role of lending libraries. For now, the largest publishers remain wary of making current e-books available through libraries, because of the likelihood that potential buyers instead will become borrowers of digital books that never wear out. The largest publishers either do not sell to libraries at all, or limit their availability. Random House recently announced a policy that would as much as triple the price of e-books to libraries. "We believe that pricing to libraries must account for the higher value of this institutional model which permits e-books to be repeatedly circulated without limitation," the publisher said in a statement. Of those books that the libraries do have on hand, the Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and the vast number of books scanned by Google are principal means of access.

The leaders of major library systems are focused on strategies that will attract borrowers who favor e-readers while reassuring publishers that they do not risk a substantial fall-off in sales from consumers able to download library books from home. For now, the terms of libraries' new relationships with their patrons are matters of debate and are far from settled. Lending libraries are great community assets, and the challenge they face is to remain relevant by increasing the universe of material that is available electronically, while also maintaining their venues as destinations people choose to visit. The New York Public Library, for example, is in the midst of a major effort to explain a controversial and expensive renovation plan for its main branch at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue that would make it more of a digital hub incorporating the Science, Industry, and Business Library operations. To make room for the changes, a large portion of the three million volumes now in the stacks would be placed in a storage facility in New Jersey. Anthony Marx, president of the library system, has written an extensive Q&A, "NYPL Embraces the Future of Libraries," responding to critics by assuring them that the books would remain easily accessible. Whatever your position on the shift, Marx made a pledge in his extensive response to critics that will be the standard on which the changes will be judged: "Our absolute priority is to preserve the integrity of the library and its collections as well as the unparalleled quality of the services we offer. This is the baseline we must maintain in order to do even more."

How all these issues are resolved will determine the shape of the digital publishing and reading experience, but only for a short time, if the recent past is a valid guide. As the use of devices increases and their multiple functions evolve, new problems in the commercial and technical arenas are bound to emerge -- that is the pattern of progress -- and new ways of dealing with them will have to be found.

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