Week 8 Reading Reflection

I had actually never read the ALA’s code of ethics until today; strange, right? I think it’s one of those things that just slipped through the cracks. Honestly, I was a little arrogant when I approached it, thinking that there really couldn’t be much there. I think that’s grounded in my experience as an attorney; before you’re admitted to the bar, you have to pass an exam on professional responsibility, and you can take a full semester course in law school to prepare if you want to. I didn’t, but I did study for quite a while before taking the MPRE. So next to that, the ALA’s code of ethics actually is kind of lightweight, in terms of how much information there is to deal with. But even though it’s brief, I could see how there actually could be some significant ethical quandaries in librarianship.

For example, I remember the outcry when the Library of Congress blocked Wikileaks, and as I was reading I thought, “They must have updated this to make a point about the situation.” But then I saw the date, and realized that it had been this way when the Wikileaks incident occurred. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to balance your clearly-stated ethical principles as a librarian with your obligations as a government employee; I’m glad I’m not the one who had to make that judgment call. I think the code does a good job of addressing potential problems in general enough terms to make the principles broadly applicable. I also think the position on intellectual property is a little bit of a cop-out, since 17 words are hardly sufficient to give librarians a real idea how to deal with potential copyright issues, but that’s just my hang-up.

As for the reading on creating a library assignment workshop for university faculty, I don’t really have much to say. I loved that it was included here, and I definitely recognized some of my experiences as an undergrad and as a grad student among the descriptions of assignment types. I can see this being really useful when I start working as a librarian, and I’ve filed it away for then.

Since I’m one of the people who couldn’t make it to class last week, I obviously don’t have any thoughts on the book clubs so far. But I’ve gone over our readings for Monday’s book club, and I’m struck by how different the stories are; I’m looking forward to hearing what my classmates have to say about them.

HCOD

Oh boy.

So, I had already read quite a bit about this issue, but it had all been commentary and calls for boycotts. This time around, I read the official statements from HarperCollins and OverDrive, as well as discussions by a few blog authors on both sides of the issue. And… this is kind of a mess.

First of all, I think that people should probably stop invoking the First Sale Doctrine. It doesn’t work here; HarperCollins has been very careful to make it clear that e-books are licensed, not sold, which takes them out of the realm of the First Sale Doctrine. One of the reasons the FSD came into being was that a physical work is hard to track after its initial sale, so just as a matter of practical policy, it doesn’t make sense to let a copyright holder try to control a work after it’s purchased. But a license is another beast altogether; you can call this morally unjustifiable, but you simply cannot call it illegal.

Having said that, do I think that this stinks? Yes. I do, and not even for the sake of the library or libraries with which I’ll someday be affiliated; as Jason Griffey pointed out, the impact of this on academic libraries is likely to be negligible. But it will be rough for public libraries, and some of the possible repercussions and/or “solutions” (I’m looking at you, Martin Taylor) are unacceptable. Not to mention that posting this information on a site called “Library Love Fest” is so ridiculously ironic that it blows my mind.

So the only remaining question is, what do I think should happen here? Well, here comes capitalism to the rescue: voting with your wallet is a solid way to fight back. It might even do some good; at the very least, HarperCollins might bend a little as a way to pour oil on the choppy waters of public opinion. Putting the squeeze on public libraries is like kicking a puppy because it bit you with its tiny little puppy teeth; even if you think you’re in the right, no one else is going to agree with you. Unless they hate puppies.

Boycott aside, I think that to resolve this to everyone’s satisfaction, we really are going to have to stop treating e-books like traditional books. I know that some librarians argue that the unpredictable nature of the licensing will make it impossible to budget, and that’s a fair point. Eventually, I think this situation will go the way of so many research databases currently used in academic libraries—subscription services. Instead of licensing a single title and lending it 26 times before re-purchasing, I think that libraries will purchase a general license annually, covering a set number of “loans” of any of the books in the catalog. Maybe publishers will create different tiers within that catalog, adjusting price structure based on the contents of each tier. This would allow libraries to create a predictable annual budget while still letting publishers and authors profit from their work; authors’ profits could be determined in a manner similar to that used by the RIAA in their licensing.

This idea probably has lots of flaws; if it were perfect, someone in the industry would presumably have suggested it already. Or maybe it's been suggested lots of times, and I just haven't read enough to know it. HarperCollins definitely didn’t make the brightest move in the world here, and I don’t think the precise boundaries of their current position will stick. But as multiple bloggers noted, we can’t treat e-books like their paper brethren. The new medium demands a new approach to lending, and I hope one can be developed without too much ideological bloodshed.

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See, I promised last week that I’d make up for the short and crabby blog entry with a long one this week; I think it’s fair to say that I delivered (if anyone is even still reading at this point.)