“Starting today, millions of Kindle customers can borrow Kindle books from their local libraries,” said Jay Marine, Director, Amazon Kindle. “Libraries are a critical part of our communities and we’re excited to be making Kindle books available at more than 11,000 local libraries around the country. We’re even doing a little extra here – normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we’re fixing this by extending our Whispersync technology to library books, so your notes, highlights and bookmarks are always backed up and available the next time you check out the book or if you decide to buy the book.”

The following Kindle book features apply to library check-outs:

• Whispersync technology wirelessly sync your books, notes, highlights, and last page read across Kindle and free Kindle reading apps
• Real Page Numbers let you easily reference passages with page numbers that correspond to actual print editions
• Facebook and Twitter integration makes it easy to share favorite passages with your social networks
• Popular Highlights show you what our community of millions of Kindle readers think are the most interesting passages in your books
• Public Notes allow you to share your notes and see what others are saying about Kindle books

“This is a welcome day for Kindle users in libraries everywhere and especially our Kindle users here at The Seattle Public Library,” said Marcellus Turner, city librarian for The Seattle Public Library. “We’re thrilled that Amazon is offering such a new approach to library ebooks that enhances the reader experience.”

Last month, Amazon launched an HTML5 web app called Kindle Cloud Reader, which is essentially a web-based version of the Kindle reader, so you can read the books on the web.

Amazon is expected to launch a Netflix-style book service as part of Amazon prime. Members would reportedly have access to a library of older titles as part of the $79 a year membership.

This month, Amazon also started pushing AmazonLocal deals to Kindle devices.

The project will even let users check out Kindle books, and save annotations and bookmarks, which will be preserved if the book is checked out again in the future. Pretty cool.

The company has partnered with OverDrive, a library digital content solutions provider on the initiative. “We hear librarians and patrons rave about Kindle, so we are thrilled that we can be part of bringing library books to the unparalleled experience of reading on Kindle,” said OverDrive CEO Steve Potash.

“We’re excited that millions of Kindle customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from their local libraries,” said Jay Marine, Director, Amazon Kindle. “Customers tell us they love Kindle for its Pearl e-ink display that is easy to read even in bright sunlight, up to a month of battery life, and Whispersync technology that synchronizes notes, highlights and last page read between their Kindle and free Kindle apps.”

“We’re doing a little something extra here,” Marine continued. “Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we’re extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check out from your local library. Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced.”

It will be interesting to see how this move affects Kindle book sales. You could always make the case that libraries and book sales have always co-existed nicely, but many book lovers love their hard copies.

Last month, Amazon shut down API access to Lendle, a program that lets Kindle users lend books from their libraries to friends. Shortly after, Amazon restored the access.

Amazon’s new library lending program will be available for all Kindle versions, including all the mobile apps.

Low-income adults are more likely to rely on the public library as their main resource to access computers and the Internet than any other income group. Over all, 44 percent of people living below the federal poverty line used computers and the Internet at their public libraries.

Americans across all age groups reported they used library computers for Internet access. Teens are the most active users. Half of 14- to 18-year-olds reported they used a library computer during the past year, usually to do school homework.

"People from all walks of life use library computers to perform routine and life-changing tasks, from emailing friends to finding jobs," said Michael Crandall, senior lecturer and chair of the Master of Science in Information Management at the University of Washington Information School.

"More than three-quarters of those who used the library Internet connections had access at home, work, or elsewhere. Oftentimes, they needed a faster connection, assistance from a librarian, or temporary access in an emergency."

In the last 12 months forty percent of library computer users received help with career needs. Among these users, 75 percent searched for a job online. Half of these users filled out an online application or submitted a resume.

Other highlights from the report include:

  *37 percent focused on health issues. The vast majority of these users (82 percent) logged on to learn about a disease, illness, or medical condition. One-third of these users sought out doctors or health care providers. Of these, about half followed up by making appointments for care.
 

*42 percent received help with educational needs. Among these users, 37 percent (an estimated 12 million students) used their local library computer to do homework for a class.
 

*Library computers linked patrons to their government, communities, and civic organizations. Sixty-percent of users – 43.3 million people – used a library’s computer resources to connect with others.

"Library technology services have created opportunity for millions of Americans, but public libraries struggle to replace aging computer workstations and increase the speed of their Internet connections," said Allan Golston, president of the United States Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"This study highlights what is at risk, particularly for low-income individuals who heavily rely on the public library for their technology, if future public and private investment in public libraries doesn’t keep pace with demand."
 

The service is due out sometime in the first half of next year. It would reportedly begin with between 400,000 and 600,000 books. Prices would be set by the publishers. Google would get just over half of the profits, with the publishers getting the rest.

In addition to Google’s big project, libraries are starting to offer electronic books. Motoko Rich with the New York Times reports:

Eager to attract digitally savvy patrons and capitalize on the growing popularity of electronic readers, public libraries across the country are expanding collections of books that reside on servers rather than shelves.

The idea is to capture borrowers who might not otherwise use the library, as well as to give existing customers the opportunity to try new formats.

With the increasing availability of electronic books to commonly used devices, we are likely to see a great increase in the amount of people actually reading them. I’m not ready to declare printed book anywhere close to dying, but it may mean bad news for the Kindle.

It makes sense to some extent though. This is the library we’re talking about. Library information shouldn’t have to rely on a corporation, and the group seems to have nothing but respect for Google. They’re just trying to cover their bases. Backup is never a bad thing.

"Google is an excellent partner,” Bits quotes Paul Courant, university librarian and dean of libraries at the University of Michigan. "They are a corporation with a responsibility to its stockholders. Google could last 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years. We are academic institutions with a commitment to the preservation and use of scholarship and the scholarship record for the indefinite future."

Besides, they’re going to have things that Google doesn’t as well. Materials digitized through other means will also be made available through HathiTrust, they said in a press release. So far HathiTrust contains 2 million volumes and approximately 3/4 of a billion pages, about 16 percent of which are in the public domain. You can’t view this stuff yet though. A blurb on the HathiTrust site goes:

Where’s the search interface to all of the content in HathiTrust? There is currently no single global interface to the body of content in HathiTrust repository.

Be assured we are working with our partners to accomplish this—a way that takes into account the large number of different sources of metadata and the different strategies each of the partners has for managing that information.

I assume Google is one of these partners, but to be clear, this project is separate from Google. That’s the whole point, so it will be interesting to see if Google ends up providing the search technology for the database. While there are 25 libraries participating in the project so far, they are hoping to get the rest of those involved with the Google Books Library Project on board as well. Current partners are as follows:

To access the program users need a library card, access to the Internet and some downloadable software such as Adobe Digital Edition, the Mobipocket Reader or the OverDrive Media Console.

By visiting a library’s Web site users can choose titles, add them to a digital book bag and click the download button. Titles that are not available can be placed on hold to download later.

The digital content will remain on a computer for one to three weeks depending on the library and title, saving a return trip to the library.

One of the major distributors to libraries is OverDrive, which has licensing deals with publishers HarperCollins and Random House along with some music labels.

David Burleigh, OverDrive’s director of marketing, told Reuters the company has a catalog of 100,000 titles, works with around 7,500 libraries and has had millions of downloads of its media player and digital checkouts.

"We also know we are touching only a small percentage of each library’s patrons. Everyone we talk to is like ‘Wow, you do that?’" he says. "It’s a like this nice secret, that we of course don’t want to be kept secret."

Besides staying up to date with technology, libraries like the digital content because it does not take up shelf, something that is an issue for many libraries.
 

Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Illinois, who sponsored the bill, says the measure would prevent sexual predators from communicating with minors who are using a library computer. Children would be allowed to access social networking sites with parental permission.

The American Library Association is critical of Kirk’s bill and views it as the federal government overstepping its bounds to interfere with library users privacy and free speech.

"If people in a community do not feel confident that their privacy will be protected, they cannot use the library as it was intended, for intellectual pursuit," Emily Sheketoff, who heads the association’s Washington office told Gannet. "It will intimidate them."

Kirk’s bill, the Deleting Online Predators Act, stalled in 2006 but was revived this year.

Kirk says with a growing number of children visiting social networking sites, more online sexual predators are targeting children.

The American Library Association says the legislation takes the wrong approach to keeping kids safe from online predators. It says instead of banning sites, parents and kids need to be educated on how to deal with online threats anywhere they can access the Internet and not just at libraries.
 

Sort of, anyway. The specific questions asked in the phone survey included whether respondents had experienced 10 specific problems recently. All of the problems included need access to the government or government-provided information. Of the respondents who had experienced at least one of those problems, 58% of them turned to the Internet for answers. Only 13% of them turned to the library for help. The ten specific problems:

1. dealing with a serious illness or health concern
2. making a decision about school enrollment, financing school, or upgrading work skills
3. dealing with a tax matter
4. changing a job or starting a business
5. getting information about Medicare, Medicaid, or food stamps
6. getting information about Social Security or military benefits
7. getting information about voter registration or a government policy
8. seeking helping on a local government matter such as a traffic problem or schools
9. becoming involved in a legal matter
10. becoming a citizen or helping another person with an immigration matter.

Before we despair the plight of the outdated book repository model, another key finding was that 53% of respondents actually do visit libraries (physically, not just their websites) for all kinds of things. The release continues:

Furthermore, it is young adults who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library.

Naturally, people without Internet access (23% of those surveyed) tend to turn to libraries and government agencies directly.

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Interestingly, both Microsoft and Yahoo have ties to the OCA; they’re actually listed as “contributors” within the organization’s site.  But, as reported by Katie Hafner, “Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services.  Microsoft places a similar restriction on the books it converts to electronic form.  The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material available to any search service.”

And that seems a little more true to library form, even if there weren’t other matters at stake.  “Scanning the great libraries is a wonderful idea, but if only one corporation controls access to this digital collection, we’ll have handed too much control to a private entity,” explained Brewster Kahle in an interview with Hafner.

So, as a sort of scorecard, or at least an informative glance: the OCA states that the Boston Library Consortium, the Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries are among its contributors.  Google’s associated with Harvard.  And Microsoft has signed on both the University of California and the University of Toronto.

Despite financial differences, it seems that the OCA is still doing quite well in its competition with the big corporations.

“The collection housed at the extraordinary Mann Library will be digitized, making it possible for people everywhere to search and discover books on environmental science, public policy, natural resources, and much more,” announced William Rucklidge, a Google software engineer and Cornell man.

“This is tremendous news, and I hope people around the world will gain as much joy and enrichment from Cornell’s libraries as I did,” Rucklidge continued on the Inside Google Book Search Blog.

I’ll admit that I might gain more joy from another source – according to a release, Mann Library deals in “biological sciences, natural resources, plant, animal and environmental sciences, applied economics, management and public policy, human development, textiles and apparel, nutrition and food science,” while I’m more of a novel and short story sort of fellow – but it’s a nice thought.

Google’s also keeping mindful of lawyers – as with other Library Project developments, none of this will violate copyright law.  Only out-of-copyright texts will be made fully available, and for everything else (out of the 500,000 books that might be scanned), would-be readers “will just get the basic background (such as the book’s title and the author’s name), [and] at most a few lines of text related to their search and information about where they can buy or borrow a book.”