On September 25th-27th, many members of the ebook world gathered together in Washington DC for the Electronic Book Conference.  The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) sponsored the third annual conference in an effort to foster the creation of industry standards.  Among the approximately 1,000 attendants were about 100 librarians, representing all types of libraries.

I came away from the conference with two realizations about the ebook world.  The first is that two, very distinct camps are forming among ebook manufacturers.  The second is that the ebook world has not overlooked libraries; they are deliberately ignoring them.

The larger of the two ebook camps includes Microsoft, Adobe and other ebook software manufacturers.  Their general belief is that consumers do not want to purchase a single-purpose, ebook reading device for several hundred dollars.  Consumers would rather want to spend the same amount of money to purchase a multi-purpose device that also includes ebook reading software, such as a PDA, Pocket PC or laptop computer.  Therefore, the companies in this camp are developing ebook software, such as Microsoft Reader and Glassbook Reader, which can be run on various multi-purpose devices.

In the opposing camp is Gemstar-TV International Inc.  Gemstar argues that although consumers may prefer multi-purpose devices, publishers want dedicated ebook readers, such as the Rocket and SoftBook.  Martin Eberhard, co-founder and former CEO of NuvoMedia, the makers of the Rocket, demonstrated to the audience at the conference why this is the case.   Eberhard showed the audience an MP3 player that was protected by Microsoft Windows Media Rights Manager.  According to Microsoft’s website “it would take days of supercomputer time to decode” the encryption that the Microsoft product affords applications that use Windows Media Rights Manager for digital rights management.  However, Eberhard was able to locate and download a hacker’s decryption program on the Internet that was able to decrypt Microsoft’s encryption within less than a minute.  The point to Eberhard’s demonstration is that for every piece of encryption software, there will be a hacker somewhere in the world who will find a way to decrypt it and will distribute that decryption program freely over the Internet.  Therefore, the only way to prevent the decryption of ebook copyright protection is for the ebooks to only reside on dedicated ebook devices that do not have any underlying operating system.  Without an operating system, it is not possible to run any type of program on the device, including hacker decryption programs.   At the end of Eberhard’s demonstration, the fear among the publishers in the audience was palpable. 

One camp is responding to the wants of the consumers and the other to the fears of the publishing industry.  Hard to predict who is going to win!

My other realization is that the ebook world has not overlooked libraries; they are deliberating ignoring them.  In the afternoon of the second day of the conference, there were two, concurrent break-out sessions:  “E-Books: Changing Libraries, Government Business & Learning” and ”Business Models to Support E-Book Business.”  After a few minutes, it became clear that the only people attending the break-out session that focused on libraries were librarians—the speakers were preaching to the converted!  The rest of the industry was next door at the business model session.  Although the realization that libraries are not a main focus of most of the ebook industry was nothing new, the reasoning behind this was.

It appears that libraries caught in a catch-22.  Publishers, fearful that they will be the next victims of napster piracy, insist that their titles be tightly encrypted when converted into digital format.  The manufacturers of ebook software and hardware are using content in order to sell their products-- “Buy XYZ in order to read Stephen King’s latest work!”  Since they need the content, ebook manufacturers must acquiesce to the publishers’ demands for tight encryption.  Since it is very difficult for libraries to use tightly encrypted ebook systems, libraries are not yet a viable market. 

So, what should librarians do about this catch-22 that we are in?  Do we wait until the ebook industry comes calling or is there a way to promote the needs and agendas of libraries now?  I welcome your comments and suggestions that will be included in an editorial in the next issue of this newsletter.