Chris Meadows explains the rapid descent of the only remaining national bookstore chain and the impending impact on the bookselling landscape, including on the stores’ employees and customers.
In the third installment of her series, Ellyssa Kroski discusses the hybrid model at NYLI and how her team is utilizing aggregators and individual publisher platforms as well as subscription models and patron-driven acquisitions to create the largest and most comprehensive eBook collection of any membership law library in the US. Be sure to check out Parts One and Two of this informative series.
Ellyssa Kroski discusses the range of eBook pricing models that are currently available along with the pros and cons respective to each. Kroski’s article also addresses other critical issues relevant to managing subscription-based, patron-driven acquisitions, short term loans, access-to-own, as well as strategies for controlling costs, and questions to ask before choosing an eBook solution. Also see Kroski’s The State of Law Library eBooks 2017-18 Part One: The Landscape.
Costs continue to rise for students who are pursing college and post graduate degree programs. By leveraging best practice sites, services and non-traditional options to expand knowledge, skills and abilities in many disciplines, students can choose from a wide range of options to complete their respective goals. This guide by Marcus Zillman is a comprehensive listing of useful open source educational resources, sites, e-books and courses on the Internet that can assist you in optimizing your learning opportunities.
Ellyssa Kroski is the Director of Information Technology at the New York Law Institute and an award-winning editor and author of 36 books. In Part One of a three part series for LLRX, she describes the current landscape of eBooks relevant to the law library field, the benefits and challenges of offering eBooks in law libraries, the different ways to purchase law-related eBooks, and how to get started choosing a solution.
This new article by David Rothman aligns effortlessly with the 21st anniversary of LLRX.com, this site that I created and have published since 1996, during the first wave of World Wide Web initiatives. Rothman has been contributing continuous forward thinking, expertise and innovative leadership since the early1990s on the importance free ebooks, well-stocked national digital libraries, and of librarians enjoying far more of a presence on the Internet.
How to turn phone-aholics and others into library book readers and gung-ho patrons, if they aren’t already? One answer is greater visibility for libraries on the Web and elsewhere. David Rothman explains that’s what Koios, Troy Gordner’s company, is about. Rothman, a national digital library evangelist, also shares innovative ideas that many libraries can implement to raise their visibility, accessibility and viability now and into the future.
Journalist and librarian Marcus Banks discusses the role, relevancy and impact of librarians in all sectors as we are increasingly overwhelmed with information and yet access to actionable resources is often blocked by fees and paywalls, and the goal of knowledge sharing is subsumed and often ill served by conflicting agendas. Librarians remain critical advocates for open access, teachers of digital literacy skills, proponents of services to all Americans, and touchstones for identifying truth in an increasingly growing sphere of fake news and information that fails to serve democracy, education, and commerce.
Chris Meadows calls our attention to a Yale Law Journal by Lina M. Khan published in January 2017 titled Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox. The author presents an argument in favor of modifying antitrust law in light of the realm of competition created by a burgeoning, powerful and often narrow group of players in specific e-commerce marketplaces. For librarians, researchers, professors and student among others, the issue of pricing and competition in the ebook market is particularly salient.
This is an introduction to a critical effort to support local public libraries throughout the United States, not in competition with any other efforts, programs or initiatives, but with the goal to fund a robust, long lived and essential endowment in response to ongoing defunding of critical library staffing and resources in our communities, especially poor land rural localities.