LITTLE ROCK — Santa brought Riley Montague a Nook for Christmas, an electronic reader that the 8-year-old has pointed out to her mother every chance she could.
“She’s been watching the price points and telling me when it’s on sale,” said her mother, Whitney Montague.
In anticipation, Montague stocked her daughter’s online wish list full of library books to check out after opening the Nook. Although the family buys numerous books, Montague said she prefers downloading digital copies from the Central Arkansas Library System.
“I’m busy. I’m a consultant. I’m a mom. I travel a lot. It’s great to have a variety of books at your fingers literally without having to carry them around,” she said.
The library system has only had an online presence for two years. The digital catalog has grown from 67 titles in December 2009 to more than 3,000.
“We add new titles every month,” said Carol Coffey, head of library development services.
Although online borrowing represents a small fraction of the library’s annual circulation of 2.4 million books, CDs and DVDs, the demand for digital is growing.
Patrons checked out 3,693 digital titles last year. This year, checkouts reached 29,072 by the end of November. The library system has also made it easier to access account information online through its website and a new mobile version for cell phones.
“I think it’s going to be an alternative and not replacement,” said Bobby Roberts, the library system’s director, about e-books’ impact. “It will kind of be like the Internet. People thought it would put the public library out of business, but, in fact, it gave us more business.”
Electronic books still only account for a third of the library’s book purchasing. The library spent about $170,000 on digital copies this year, and expects to spend about the same in next year’s $17.3 million operating budget, Coffey said.
Nationwide, e-books are in 66 percent of public libraries, up from 38 percent three years ago, according to the American Library Association.
The library system serving Pulaski and Perry counties would likely buy even more digital copies, but several major publishers decided to prevent libraries from adding some of the latest and more popular titles to their online catalogs.
One weekend this fall, Penguin publishers removed library access to digital copies of books designed for Kindles. The decision came without any notice and libraries found out from one another that the publisher had security concerns. Penguin put the copies back out for use after some outcry, but libraries can’t add any additional titles until the publisher works out its licensing concerns.
Earlier this year, Roberts sent HarperCollins a letter saying they would not be buying any more titles from them after the publisher decided to limit libraries to checking out titles 26 times before having to buy a new copy. Twenty-six checkouts is roughly a year’s worth of lending, librarians have said, as only one patron at a time can “borrow” the digital copy typically for two weeks.
A recent report by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group shows that 114 million e-books were sold between 2008 and 2010.
Coffey doesn’t see the library as being a competitor — libraries aren’t restricted on use of their hard copies, she said. Even she continues to buy hard copies and digital titles.
Users of the library’s catalog must be a Pulaski County or Perry County resident or work in the counties to have a library card, and the online catalog is accessed with the card’s identification number.
“We just want to make sure that publishers know that and aren’t thinking of us as aiding in piracy. A publisher sometimes thinks that libraries buy one copy and let everyone in the world use it and therefore they’re only going to buy one copy. Of course that’s not true,” Coffey said. “We also introduce readers to new authors or to an old author they didn’t know before. Everybody benefits from this.”
Library user Elizabeth Fortune only discovered the library’s online catalog in September after learning about its existence from a friend’s Facebook post.
Since then, Fortune frequently checks her Amazon. com wish list of books against the library’s catalog to see if a copy is available to borrow and read on her iPad.
“It’s nice ... when they say the book is available, I can hit a few buttons and start reading immediately instead of having to drive two minutes to the library down the street,” said Fortune, who lives in Little Rock.
Renewing a checkout is also easier in the digital format, she said. Fortune has had to download one book — The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson — three times before she could finish it. (A digital copy expires and deletes itself from an electronic reader when the due date passes.)
Fortune often turns to the online library for fiction or “chick lit.” She’s not really into the large collection of science fiction or vampire books the library has online.
When Whitney Montague’s not helping her daughter find a book, she peruses the catalog for classics and Shakespeare.
“I also downloaded the Bible, which gets me funny looks in the pew,” Montague said. “They think I’m playing a game.”
While the convenience is a huge factor in why she frequently uses the digital catalog, Montague said it’s also saved her hundreds of dollars in overdue fines or lost books.
“One day, I stacked books on top of my car and forgot and drove off. That was an expensive library day,” she said.
It also helps her save her money “for the books that matter.” For example, she said, the children’s book Invention of Hugo Cabret costs $25.
“It’s a gorgeous book and you want to buy it and you don’t want to spend all your money on Captain Underpants saves the world.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/27/2011