Greater Victoria Public Library

[victorian fan]

Greater Victoria Public library users are downloading books from home without ever worrying about late fees.

GVPL cardholders are now able to download audio books to popular portable media devices, such as IPods, MP3 players and cellphones. Since January, audio and e-books have been downloaded more than 6,000 times from the GVPL website.

“This provides a different format for people and gives them access to free legal material,” said Colleen Stewart, head of collection services for GVPL.

“People have access 24/7 whenever they want.”

Any GVPL cardholder can download audio books and e-books for an average of 14 days. When the load period expires, so does access to the files.

For MP3 and IPod versions of audio books, the most downloaded items are fictional books, followed by non-fiction, romance, children’s fiction, mystery and self-improvement.

Textbooks, travel, language and computer books in e-book format are also highly sought after.

Although it seems that non-fiction books are in high demand, province-wide the most requested audio book is the vampire romance novel, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. It currently has about 270 holds on it.

Once a book is published, the GVPL has to order it, receive it and catalogue it, Stewart said. By adding the digital downloads the GVPL finds it easier and less expensive to expand it collection, she said.

“(Digital downloads) make the books available sooner. It’s good for books that date themselves quickly,” Stewart said.

The digital downloads are made possible though B.C. Libraries, which has about 2,800 e-books and 3,900 audio books. Each municipal library service in B.C. helps pay for the service making the resources a lot more affordable, Stewart said.

Audio and ebooks are available for download from gvpl.ca, click on Library to Go.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver.../54012767.html

[yodsaker]

Nobody likes taxes but the GVPL is one thing I'm happy to pay for. A good library system is a mark of a civilized place to live.

[VicHockeyFan]

There is something strange about loaning out digital files, one copy at a time.

I know, it's the way it should be done, but it just seems so unlike what we do with piracy rampant these days....

[davek]

Originally Posted by yodsaker

Nobody likes taxes but the GVPL is one thing I'm happy to pay for. A good library system is a mark of a civilized place to live.

I'm happy to pay for it, too, but I don't think using the democratic process to force others to pay is very civilized.

[http]

Originally Posted by VicHockeyFan

There is something strange about loaning out digital files, one copy at a time.

I know, it's the way it should be done, but it just seems so unlike what we do with piracy rampant these days....

Why should it be done that way?

Bear with me while i take a flight of fancy - the odds of it happening aren't the important part, the results are:

If the earth started getting pelted with gold meteorites for a year so that gold is no longer a rare, (read: hard to find, mine, and purify) metal, the price of gold will drop. Its industrial value will not drop. End of story. Anyone still trying to charge $900 / oz will be rightly looked upon as an idiot. Anyone whose business model relies on gold being sold for $900 / oz shall either learn a new schtick or starve. At the same time, anyone who stops using gold to plate edgemount electrical connectors will be looked at kinda funny. Just because it becomes plentiful does not diminish its anti-corrosive properties.

Previously, information was hard to copy (read: hard to do accurately, cheaply, and quickly). Now, thanks to a few technological advancements, copying information is so easy, cheap, and fast that I can now copy a decade's worth of priceless photos in moments. *

Anyone whose business model relies on information being hard to copy better learn a new trick, because that is no longer true. End of story. Every attempt to make information on a computer hard to copy (for at least the past 30 years in personal experience, and before that anecdotealy(sp?) has failed.

* just did it on my system while finishing up this post. result for my pictures: 3 minutes and 18 seconds for a full and perfect copy of all.
real 3m17.827s
user 0m0.256s
sys 0m18.201s

[http]

Originally Posted by http

If the earth started getting pelted with gold meteorites for a year

I hope nobody gets hit with one of these.

[G-Man]

I hope that I am a near miss.

[VicDuck]

Hope this keeps the next generation interested in books.

[Ms. B. Havin]

Originally Posted by http

If the earth started getting pelted with gold meteorites for a year so that gold is no longer a rare, (read: hard to find, mine, and purify) metal, the price of gold will drop. Its industrial value will not drop. End of story. Anyone still trying to charge $900 / oz will be rightly looked upon as an idiot. Anyone whose business model relies on gold being sold for $900 / oz shall either learn a new schtick or starve. At the same time, anyone who stops using gold to plate edgemount electrical connectors will be looked at kinda funny. Just because it becomes plentiful does not diminish its anti-corrosive properties.

Previously, information was hard to copy (read: hard to do accurately, cheaply, and quickly). Now, thanks to a few technological advancements, copying information is so easy, cheap, and fast that I can now copy a decade's worth of priceless photos in moments. *

Anyone whose business model relies on information being hard to copy better learn a new trick, because that is no longer true. End of story. Every attempt to make information on a computer hard to copy (for at least the past 30 years in personal experience, and before that anecdotealy(sp?) has failed.

Well said!

[VicHockeyFan]

Originally Posted by http

Why should it be done that way?

Because somebody owns the copyright on that book, and if you gave out 270 copies simultaneously, you'd owe that author 270 times what you paid for it.

[jklymak]

Originally Posted by http

Anyone whose business model relies on information being hard to copy better learn a new trick, because that is no longer true. End of story. Every attempt to make information on a computer hard to copy (for at least the past 30 years in personal experience, and before that anecdotealy(sp?) has failed.

That's kind of like saying that its possible to pick any safe so people should give up any activity that requires things to be kept in a safe. It doesn't make cracking the safe moral or legal, nor does it mean that those who help themselves to the safe's contents should feel it is OK to do so. If you infringe someone's copyright, you infringe their copyright - how convenient it is to do so doesn't make it acceptable.

[Bernard]

Originally Posted by http

If the earth started getting pelted with gold meteorites for a year so that gold is no longer a rare, (read: hard to find, mine, and purify) metal, the price of gold will drop. Its industrial value will not drop. End of story. Anyone still trying to charge $900 / oz will be rightly looked upon as an idiot. Anyone whose business model relies on gold being sold for $900 / oz shall either learn a new schtick or starve. At the same time, anyone who stops using gold to plate edgemount electrical connectors will be looked at kinda funny. Just because it becomes plentiful does not diminish its anti-corrosive properties.

Previously, information was hard to copy (read: hard to do accurately, cheaply, and quickly). Now, thanks to a few technological advancements, copying information is so easy, cheap, and fast that I can now copy a decade's worth of priceless photos in moments. *

There is a real life situation where this is happening, diamonds can now be produced synthetically as gemstones. There is no difference between then and the ones that are mined other than some minor trace elements can be found with spectroscopy. These synthetic diamonds are now available but the price for diamond gemstones has not dropped dramatically. It has been several years that the new diamonds have been available.

The diamond business is trying to convince the world that a 'natural' diamond is real and a synthetic one is not. They want to certify all diamond gemstones. Will the succeed? Who knows, but manufactured gemstones will soon cost the same as something cubic zirconium.

If pearls are an example, the introduction of cultured pearls took pearls from one of the most expensive 'gemstones' to a very affordable one.

Meanwhile we pay a lot more for milk in BC because the government artificially restricts supply. It is easy to produce milk, but the government controls the supply. We pay about 40-50% more for diary products because of this supply management - basically none of this goes to the farmer.

This is my long winded way of saying that we do not yet know what model of paying for content is going to function best in our world.

[VicHockeyFan]

Originally Posted by Bernard

There is a real life situation where this is happening, diamonds can now be produced synthetically as gemstones. There is no difference between then and the ones that are mined other than some minor trace elements can be found with spectroscopy. These synthetic diamonds are now available but the price for diamond gemstones has not dropped dramatically. It has been several years that the new diamonds have been available.

The diamond business is trying to convince the world that a 'natural' diamond is real and a synthetic one is not. They want to certify all diamond gemstones. Will the succeed? Who knows, but manufactured gemstones will soon cost the same as something cubic zirconium.

If pearls are an example, the introduction of cultured pearls took pearls from one of the most expensive 'gemstones' to a very affordable one.

Meanwhile we pay a lot more for milk in BC because the government artificially restricts supply. It is easy to produce milk, but the government controls the supply. We pay about 40-50% more for diary products because of this supply management - basically none of this goes to the farmer.

This is my long winded way of saying that we do not yet know what model of paying for content is going to function best in our world.

Most of that is all true. Of course, diamonds have been produced for industrial applications for many years by man-made efforts.

Where does the extra money go for dairy products? Of course it goes to the farmers - it's not like there is a 40% tax that the government lifts off the top. The higher price goes to all levels from production on down.

[Bernard]

Originally Posted by VicHockeyFan

Most of that is all true. Of course, diamonds have been produced for industrial applications for many years by man-made efforts.

Where does the extra money go for dairy products? Of course it goes to the farmers - it's not like there is a 40% tax that the government lifts off the top. The higher price goes to all levels from production on down.

The amount a dairy farmer in BC makes from a litre of milk is very close to what one makes in Washington state. It is about 9-10 cents a litre.

Much of the higher price is lost to businesses like Island Farms. Supply management creates a very inefficient and costly system, there is no one able to compete with a more efficient approach.

BC farmers have an added expense in the requirement to buy a quota to produce milk.

Supply management has caused huge problems for small scale producers wanting to do something innovative and different.

[LJ]

Originally Posted by Bernard

The amount a dairy farmer in BC makes from a litre of milk is very close to what one makes in Washington state. It is about 9-10 cents a litre.

Much of the higher price is lost to businesses like Island Farms. Supply management creates a very inefficient and costly system, there is no one able to compete with a more efficient approach.

BC farmers have an added expense in the requirement to buy a quota to produce milk.

Supply management has caused huge problems for small scale producers wanting to do something innovative and different.

So true.

Remember the Langly farmer that wanted to sell whole unpasturized milk, shut down at every turn. Same is true for our egg supply - two to three times the price as those in the states and not nearly as fresh. The marketing board dribbles them on the market like DeBeers in order to keep the price up so they sit in storage a lot longer. At least you can still buy farm fresh eggs direct from the small suppliers.

[eseedhouse]

Even natural diamonds would not be terribly expensive if the market in diamonds were "free". Diamonds are not very rare, and many other gem stones should be more costly if there was a true free market.

But of course diamonds are controlled by an international cartel which keeps the price artificially high. Breaking up the cartel by legislation would cause some short term instability but in the long run diamonds would be much cheaper.

[http]

Originally Posted by jklymak

That's kind of like saying that its possible to pick any safe so people should give up any activity that requires things to be kept in a safe. It doesn't make cracking the safe moral or legal, nor does it mean that those who help themselves to the safe's contents should feel it is OK to do so. If you infringe someone's copyright, you infringe their copyright - how convenient it is to do so doesn't make it acceptable.

That's a bad analogy, because information resembles property as much as ocarinas resemble bears.* A better one would be "With current cloak technology it is possible to sneak into any theater and enjoy the show from the best seat in the house without paying, and that best seat can hold 18 billion people in it without them noticing each other."

Did I say I accepted it and found it unobjectionable? It scares the hell out of me. The backlash of business interests could lead to something as heinous as this modern-day fable: The Right to Read. Warning: may cause fear.

* I notice that you have resisted the push by compnaies involved in media distribution to deliberately confuse terminology. You still call it by what it is, copyright infringement, rather than what it is not, intellectual property theft (or the even less accurate and emotionally loaded term "piracy")

[Holden West]

We are having a difficult time finding a way to replace the current copyright system. Voluntary micropayments were proposed at least a decade ago but I doubt people are ready to use them on the scale they need to be.

[Caramia]

Before the internet I read books. I did not have a TV, and the rare event of viewing a movie happened perhaps once a year, if that. I did not buy records or CDs, however I often went to live shows.

When the internet brought us file sharing, I started downloading music. Years later, I learned that I had missed some great TV shows. Eventually I started downloading those.

When itunes created a way to easily pay for the songs I like (no longer forced to buy a whole album of crap to get the one I like) in the format I want (No massive CD collection to lug around and sort through manually, at a reasonable price - usually 99 cents a song, I started buying music. I've now replaced most of my music collection with legally purchased songs.

When the content industry gets it's collective head out of its ass and provides a way for me to pay a reasonable price to download the show I am looking for, in the comfort of my own home, at the time I choose, without using the obsolete technology of TV, I'll be delighted! At that point, I'll be buying the shows from them. Of course I expect the price to reflect the fact that they no longer have to create and distribute a hard copy.

Until then, I'm supporting the artists whose shows I enjoy by buying their DVDs. I downloaded all of Dollhouse and watched it at home (with Joss Whedon's blessing). Now I await the DVD's arrival in the mail - there it will join my collection of shows I've watched in their entirety, some of them still in plastic. People like me WANT to pay.

Paying for content is fair. Paying for legal battles against 17 year olds as an alternative to creating a way to pay for content, is morally objectionable. Paying an artist is fair. Paying the promotional machine that puffs that artist up to be the star of the moment, that dictates how skinny she should be, that spins her life into a fairytale to make normal women feel not as good, is morally objectionable.

A digital loan from the library is a fantastic way to deliver free content. It makes me want to dust off my library card.

Pandora radio and itunes' "Genius" are the right ways to find the music I'm going to buy. User ratings and fan blogs are the right way to find the TV shows I want to buy. The entertainment industry has a huge opportunity to forget the old model of stardom promotion, and get real. The music industry has found a way. Hollywood needs to follow. One good step would be making a content distribution deal with the new owner of pirate bay. One day we will look back at Pirate Bay and say "These are the guys who pushed the entertainment industry to adopt the successful new model we now all take for granted." We wouldn't have itunes without Napster. History has a funny way of turning criminals into heroes in the end.

[Holden West]

Main branch is still a round peg in an ugly square hole

While nearby cities have turned their central libraries into architectural wonders that draw people downtown, Victoria's sits crammed in an office complex

By Kim Westad, Times Colonist
November 1, 2009

While hope for a new building has fallen off the radar in recent tougher economic times -- particularly with plans for a new downtown bridge, mandated sewage treatment and a new hospital tower hitting taxpayers --Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said it's still a "top priority" for the city. He's even got a site in mind -- Centennial Square beside city hall.

"I can't think of a better place. It could be a great civic centre, it would have great accessibility and is close to transportation," Fortin said.

Whether there is the political will and money is the question.

A 2003 study called Great Libraries Make Great Cities estimates that a purpose-built, 121,000-square-foot library -- which, the report said, is the minimum size for a city of Victoria's population -- would cost $30 million, not including the price of the land.

Former library board chair Neil Williams dates the decline of Yates Street to when the library moved out of the Carnegie building at the corner at Yates and Douglas.

In Seattle and Vancouver, businesses around the new libraries have prospered because of the increased foot traffic, he said.

"People don't know what they're missing until they see a purpose-built library and how beautiful and useful it can be for the community," Williams said.

[G-Man]

Perhaps when we are in 70's we will be able tohang out in the new library.

[victorian fan]

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said it's still a "top priority" for the city.

Forget the bridge. Spend $21 million on a new library.

"top priority" my eye

[Holden West]

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said it's still a "top priority" for the city.

When everything is a "top priority", then nothing can be a top priority.

[aastra]

Getting the city's priorities straight should be a top priority.

[Ms. B. Havin]

The key piece in that article is this:

The library board serves 10 municipalities: Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal, Central Saanich, Colwood, Langford, the Highlands and Metchosin. Board representatives on the board are largely councillors or mayors from each municipality. They tend to look out for what is best for their own communities, Anderson said, not the region as a whole.


"There is no incentive because of the political makeup of the board," she said. "Whatever discretionary money there is, politicians would rather spend in their own backyard. They are rewarded for that, rather than for taking a regional view."

I'm involved with regional initiatives/ volunteer gigs, and I can tell you that Sandra Anderson's comment is bang-on. At the end of the day, Saanich or Oak Bay or any of the rest of them (their reps on these boards) want to be able to "go home" to their munis to say "we brought home the goodies."

They can't sit there without eventually thinking, "Well, if Victoria gets a shiny new building, what good is that for Saanich (or whichever muni)? I don't want Victoria to be the 'winner' if it means my muni is the 'loser,' so I better not agree to anything that would see greater success or prestige or funding go to Victoria."

And so it goes, on and on and on.

Granted, there are many enlightened municipal reps who sit on these regional boards, but it just takes one or two "fighters" (politicians looking out for "their" muni) to wreck anything that makes one muni look better than the other. And since Victoria is the region's downtown, Victoria is usually the muni that the others feel they need to fight, since it's the one that tends to get the attention and money.

It often gets to be really quite disheartening and hopeless-seeming.