TeleRead: A Well-Stocked National Digital Library for All

• TeleRead.org offers details and contact info.

• Name of both a noncommercial plan and a small Net-based group lobbying for it. Nonpartisan, nonideological.

• Discussed in Computerworld, Washington Post, MIT Press/ASIS info-sci book. Flattered by Luddite's diatribe in Library Journal.

• Would encourage literacy, more diversity of books and better archiving—a "must" in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

• Other benefits such as lower-priced e-book readers that could also be used for e-mail and Web browsing.

• Local librarians could still buy e-books for their systems and customize links from national collection.

Why We Need TeleRead• Let's try not to replicate online the "savage inequalities" of our schools and libraries.

• Budget-strapped California library spent just 25 cents per resident on books and other items in one year.

• Need documented in "Copyright and K-12: Who Pays in the Network Era?"—my paper for U.S. Department of Education.

• Urgent need to bring U.S. libraries into the 21st century. Too many influential librarians are Luddites, turf-minded careerists or both. [Nov. 6 addition: Encouragingly, the president-elect of the ALA has a strong background in information technology.]

• Greater efficiencies of blending library and commercial distribution systems. Private sector could offer enhanced versions of database. Ways to limit searches to library-blessed choices if user desires.

Main Elements of TeleRead

• Well-stocked national digital library system focused on book but rich in appropriate multimedia. Could expand on American Memory project. Hardened against viruses and physical threats.

• Aid to local libraries and school to help absorb technology and content.

• Easy-to-use, affordable, multi-use machines would help wire up millions more Americans and encourage Net commerce to help cost-justify TeleRead. Also would promote e-forms for taxes, etc.

• Assistance to other countries to create own TeleReads. Net-smart version of the old USIA libraries. Also chance to help preserve other countries' own cultures. Timely in wake of September 11 attacks and the need to win U.S. friends abroad.

Some Beneficiaries of TeleRead

• Schoolchildren and other learners. E-book case history from urban school in Chicago. Available at teleread.org. A few details later in this presentation.

• Content creators. Fair compensation for writers and publishers.

• Underfunded libraries. Just a fraction of scarce money going for books and other content.

• Young, open-minded librarians. Would like to spend more time on content and mentoring and less time acting as clerks and warehouse people.

• Business in general—not just e-book industry but Web commerce in general. TeleRead would help spread affordable tablet-style computers that shoppers could use on the kitchen table.

Participants• Libraries and museums: Help run infrastructure and work with content-providers to set general direction.

• Nonprofits and individual philanthropists: Contribute content from their collections or finance it:

• Content providers: Offer items commercially or agree to royalty arrangements under TeleRead. Choice available title by title. Many books could start out as standard commercial books and evolve into TeleRead books.

• Corporations besides content providers: Could donate money to TeleRead. Also contracts for providing technical services.

• Government: Some funding from tax money. Use of TeleRead for e-forms and e-commerce including locally based kind. Systematic ways to help cost-justify online libraries and help Main Street.

How Differs from Many Existing Visions

• Better integration of national digital library system into local libraries, schools and the rest of society.

• Closer than most other plans to the Carnegie vision of "free" libraries even though not everything would be free.

• Users could store content on their own machines for fast reference and the sharing of books with friends. Tracking of accesses could still happen via techniques already designed for commercial use.

• Massive archives for both public accesses and backup.

• Promotion of appropriate hardware that libraries and schools could lend to users. Systematic seeding of market for multi-use e-book-friendly hardware from many vendors.

More on Role of Content Providers

• Publishers and writers could worry less about the details of distribution and marketing and more about content.

• Would pay by accesses—but be much kinder to midlist titles. More money available for all kinds of books and other content. Large houses would gamble money up front to be able to qualify for larger payments on best sellers. Lost bets would mean more money for smaller books. Result? Less fixation on best-sellers. Anti-TeleRead diatribe in Library Journal got things backward and falsely depicted TeleRead as a mere popularity contest.

• Like it or not, libraries need to acknowledge the existence of capitalism and the need for writers and publishers to get paid fairly.

• TeleRead at the same time could make special provisions for certain academic works and others that were outside the usual commercial models.

TeleRead and Libraries

• Would upgrade jobs of librarian in the long run by allowing them to focus more on content and mentoring functions and less on clerical work. Custom links, custom search engines, other local possibilities. Could still allow libraries to buy books for their own communities.

• Luddites still alive and well in librarydom. Some elderly librarians fear the technology. Tendency to worry too much about ink and paper and not enough about words, ideas and stories.

• Users could limit searches to books approved by various libraries or even individual librarians. Clearly librarians could increase their influence as gate-keepers if they did their jobs well enough.

• Could fit in with existing projects such as LOC's online archives and the Digital Library Federation, once people understood the new business models here. Library publication could help by showing open-mindedness.

TeleRead and the Schools

• Children are more enthusiastic readers when they can read many books and explore their interests in depth. Better for schools in both Anacostia and Bethesda. More books available to children in rich and poor communities alike.

• Need to update books faster and link them in smoothly with the Net as a whole.

• Easier research. Goal should be knowledge, not teaching children and others to adjust to the present library system.

• E-books not just for well-off children. Successful experiment on South Side of Chicago. Teacher says kids especially enjoy the ability to change type.

• Basics the same regardless of medium. Chicago fourth grader: "E-books are fun because you can read stories."

Contact Information for TeleRead

• Web: TeleRead.org

• National Coordinator: David Rothman

• Telephone: 703-370-6540

• E-mail: rothman@clark.net

• Location: Alexandria, VA