Want to reinvigorate old texts and library patronage? Turn libraries into print-on-demand book “publishers” for works in the public domain and/or which aren’t under copyright in the current country and/or some kind of library version of CCLI churches use for music!
This idea came to me after reading this blog post from the Internet Archive (famous for the Wayback Machine).
Libraries have always bought publisher’s products but have traditionally offered alternative access modes to these materials, and can again. As an example let’s take newspapers. Published with scoops and urgency, yesterday is “old news,†the paper it was printed on is then only useful the next day as “fish wrapâ€â€“ the paper piles up and we felt guilty about the trash. That is the framing of the publisher: old is useless, new is valuable.
…the library is in danger in our digital world. In print, one could keep what one had read. In digital that is harder technically, and publishers are specifically making it harder.
So why not enable a [modest] money-making function for your local library? With resources from places like the Internet Archive, the Gutenberg Project, Kindle free books, blog posts, and on and on – there’s a veritable cornucopia of formerly-available (or only digitally-available) material that has value, but whose availability is sadly lacking: especially for those who don’t have reliable internet access, eReaders, etc. (Or folks like me who don’t especially like reading most books (especially fiction) on a device.)
I’d wager Creative Commons could gin-up some great licenses for this!
Who’s with me‽