Cognizant of the rising prices of e-books coupled with publishers refusal to lease their titles to libraries, the ALA is engaged in “fighting back”. In a recent letter from ALA president Maureen Sullivan, she explains that significant strides have been made in the goals of the 2011–2015 ALA Strategic Plan concerning the aspect of providing all Americans with ebooks and digital content. She has appointed members to the Digital Content & Libraries Working Group (DCWG), whose first major step was building relationships and improving communication with the major publishers. They then moved on to doing the same with e-book distributors. Maureen also stresses the importance of increasing media outreach and there is a “toolkit” available to further this goal. With talks of mergers by major publishers in the works, the playing field seems to be getting smaller, and ALA intends to widen it by collaborating with other organizations such as the Gates Foundation, as well as increasing relationships with independent publishers. The complete letter with additional resources may be found here. It’s nice to know our ALA dues are funding these efforts!
