What's the new economic model for libraries?

It takes a long time for a generation to come around to significant revolutionary change. The newspaper business, the steel business, law firms, the car business, the record business, even computers... one by one, our industries are being turned upside down, and so quickly that it requires us to change faster than we'd like. ...

It's unpleasant, it's not fair, but it's all we've got. The sooner we realize that the world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we've got. Whining isn't a scalable solution. Seth Godin

The economic rationale for libraries has always been simple: It's less expensive to buy one book and share it than it is to buy a book for everyone. (See Common Sense Economy)

And that worked just fine when information and entertainment came in atoms and only one person could access one container o'information at a time. It worked best when information and its physical containers were expensive for the average person. It worked well when people seemed OK with paying taxes to support the common good - like public libraries and public schools.

But libraries need to find a new economic rationale for their existence other than sharing - and fast - since sharing doesn't really work anymore - or will stop working soon. 

At a conference last Friday, Jason Griffey, librarian from Chattanooga, TN, suggested that Netflix is the new model for content delivery. And he's right. The media, which costs a set amount (26 cents a day), is leased and can be accessed on about a dozen devices including an Internet-ready TV, a ROKU, a half dozen gaming devices, a computer, a tablet, an iPodTouch or a smartphone. From anywhere. At any time. (It sucks up 20% of all Internet bandwidth during prime movie watching time in the US.) 

Music services (MOG, Rapsody, Napster) work the same way for tunes. Buy an mp3 file, let alone a CD, when you can access through a huge rental library - are you nuts?

And books? Look at Capstone's MyOn Reader and any number of e-books on demand type services. When will Amazon offer a Netflix/MOG model - all the books you can read for one low, low monthly fee?

Right now we spend about $20 per student on books and magazines in our district each year. At what point will that $20 provide more materials through a subscription to a digital e-book service than we can purchase in print? Add the money now being spent on maintaining the space required for physical shelves, cost of clerical help to reshelve, and the expense of the library catalog/circ system to the materials budget and the district has a pretty hefty sum to spend on e-stuff subscriptions.

What are you doing to prepare for the day when finding a good book or researching a paper is no longer a reason to come to the library? When administrators figure out there are less expensive, more effective ways of providing materials?

Will you have the skills and be in the position to manage digital resources? Will you have a curriculum of essential skills that only you teach? Will your physical library space still be seen as a vital part of the school program?

My bet is that e-readers will be adopted more rapidly that mp3 players. When's the last time you saw a kid using a phonograph, a cassette player or even a Walkman? My son's "e-book reader" is his iPod Touch and reading on cell phones has long been a staple in other parts of the world. Neflix is killing the video rental stores. How fast will people and schools sign up for "books on demand" when it becomes available?

Now, not tomorrow, is when to start positioning yourself in the new information ecosystem. And remember Godin's words: Whining isn't a scalable solution.