Summit: Potential Presenter

Received a suggestion for a presenter the other day and thought I'd throw it into the mix of potential Summit presenters.

Sylvia Lafair
The Creative Edge: Unleashing Innovation
http://sylvialafair.com/

Digital Book World 2013

I was able to attend the Digital Book World 2013 (DBW13) conference on  January 16 and 17, 2013 thanks to a grant from MSDE/DLDS   The conference was attended by over 1000 constituents of the “book” trade (including 2 librarians and myself.)    

2012 was the year publishers defined the gap in their business plan as not having a direct way to reach book buyers.   They were seeing the emergence of Amazon as the dominant sales venue, ebook sales saw triple digit increases,  and Borders folded 800 book stores.    At the 2012 Tools of Change conference the audience was told that big data was the path to success.   From the presentations and conversations at the DBW13 conference, it seems that the publishers have invested in staff and mechanisms that allow them to collect and analyze the data about book buyers. 

The publishers were confident that they could “sense” their customers using the data they collect.    Using their large warehouses of data, the publishers predicted that in 2013 they will be able to “find” customers for future purchase based on past purchases.   They will transition from marketing new material based on the author and shift their marketing dollars toward people who have bought this type of material before. 

The challenge publishers face is called “discoverabilty.”  How do buyers find books to buy?  With Amazon capturing a vast majority of book purchases online and the finding that people go online when they know what they want, how can publishers get their books in front of buyers?  The current pattern is that book buyers go into bricks and mortar books stores (and I would add libraries)  browse for what they want, and then go home and order it online.  They call this “showrooming.”    At this point there is no good online equivalent of “showrooming.”  (only 10% of book discovery comes from online marketing, the majority is word of mouth.)

Publishers are planning for a future in the US with no large national book store chains.  They do foresee selling books in every retail outlet in some form (kind of like RedBox at the grocery store).   With the declining amount of shelf space to showroom books, they will compensate with better metadata and social media marketing.    Publishers will drive online discoverability with enhanced and expanded “keywords” that will put a book in front of the online searcher.  They will also target “people who bought this book” in social media in the hopes that they “like” or “Share” the post with their friends. 

Another strategy to drive discoverability is “price innovation.”    In short, they will experiment with Kindle Daily Deals and the exposure that brings as a book rises up the Amazon best seller list.  For example, If you drop the price of a book to 99 cents for 24 hours, the amount of sales during that time period will drive it up the Amazon best seller list.   And on the Amazon Best Seller list, the book will be displayed for every amazon book search. 

The good news is that as ebook fiction sales helped to stabilize the publishers, they are now more willing to experiment with non-fiction and illustrated (children’s) ebooks.  The rise of the tablet over the dedicated ereader device is also driving this experimentation. 

As for libraries, I have always thought our online catalogs to find library materials could be better, and I hope that the strides publishers make toward online discoverability can be applied to our catalogs and that we can also find tools to import their improved metadata into our MARC records. 

Wave eNewsletter

Have you seen the Western Maryland Regional Library's eNewsletter, The Wave?

If you're a public library employee in Allegany, Garrett, or Washington counties then it is being delivered to your work's email inboxes! If you're not receiving it at work or would rather receive it at a personal email account, please let me (jzamostny@washcolibrary.org) know at which email address you'd prefer to receive The Wave.

Why bother receiving and reading The Wave? Good question.

It's still new so we try to change up the content with each issue (it's published every other month) but there are a few staple ingredients that might pique your interest:

• Staff Spotlight: every issue our very talented Dennis McPherson interviews a staff member from one of the library systems. We rotate between WCFL, ACLS, RELIB, and WMRL. Who knows? You might be in the spotlight next!
• County Spotlight: similar to the staff spotlight, the county spotlight highlights what's new and exciting at the county level. We rotate this content as we do the staff spotlight. Who knows, maybe you'll find your next best idea by reading about what one of your colleagues has done just a couple hours away?
• Training Spotlight: Don't have time to read all of my workshop emails or to check the MERLIN calendar for training events? No problem. In every issue of The Wave there will be one upcoming training event highlighted complete with date, time, location, and registration information.
• Did You Know: This is still a fairly new feature but it seems to be popular so, we're going to keep it going for now. This is another video segment where staff from the Regional share interesting facts and updates at the local, state, and national levels. Stay tuned to see who might be hosting the next episode!

What's new in the upcoming March/April issue (which will be coming to an inbox near you on Feb. 27th)?

• More video content!
• A contest which could win you a $20 gift certificate to a vendor of your choice!
• Plus more ... I wouldn't want to give it all away, now would I?

Stay tuned and happy learning!

Julie Z.

Shepherd Springs Not Available for Summit 2013

I just heard back from Shepherd Springs and they say they do not have space large enough to accomodate 150 people.

Technical Services Program

Technical Services: Top Trends in a Ever-Changing Library World

1/22/13

Lynda Aldana from University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Kuhn Library

This was a very interesting presentation on technical services from an academic library perspective. Not surprisingly, the challenges facing academic libraries are the same ones public libraries are facing, including budget issues, changing user expectations, and staffing levels, and while the actual materials may vary from those in the public library (dissertation and thesis materials, serials, etc) the approach to these challenges are similar to those being taken by public libraries in Maryland.   

The discussion of the Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA)  model  caught my attention. I had first heard about this at the ALA conference last year, again in an academic environment. DDA allows users access to ebooks for a fee for the first few times the resource is needed. At some per-determined point (after so many accesses), the ebook is purchased (permanently). This makes so much sense to me, and I think there should be a way of applying it in the public library.  Depending on whether our publishers would agree to this and the library being willing to “purchase” ebooks, it seems it could be applied to non-fiction and reference materials pretty easily.  Of course, the other part of the equation in making this successful would be re-training users to the ebook world for their resources. I know this has started, but it is a very slow process. Especially in rural communities like Hancock. But I think it is an idea that needs to be considered and revisited often.

GC Regional Library Friends (Allegany Co)

The George's Creek Promotion Council, friends of the GC Regional Library reports at least 9 main people on their steering committee. Perhaps instead of inviting all friends, too many = too expensive, a representative can be invited to join us for the day... Update: I entered an incorrect number for GC. It should be 20.

LaVale Library Friends (Allegany Co)

Info on the Friends of the LaVale Library: Pam Neder, branch librarian reported a total of 9 on the steering committee. I still need to get the info from our own library branch!