Book Review: No Shelf Required 2: Use and Management of Electronic Books

Abstract

No Shelf Required 2: Use and Management of Electronic Books. Edited by Sue Polanka. Chicago: ALA, 2012. 254 p. $65 paperback (ISBN: 978-0-8389-1145-7). Published a year after No Shelf Required: E-Books in Libraries, the prolific Sue Polanka has assembled a second collection on e-books in libraries. (1) No Shelf Required 2 (NSR2) builds on the evidence that e-books are no longer a novelty for libraries; several chapters cite the Library Journal survey on e-book holdings for public and academic libraries and school media centers to document the growth of e-book holdings. Now that e-books are well established in libraries of all types, NSR2 addresses issues beyond acquisition and application to include access, preservation, and integration. The result is maturation of the subject that is reflected in the content and the experience of the contributors. Polanka is to be commended for assembling a diverse group of contributors. Of the sixteen chapters, six are written by academic librarians, four by school media specialists, and two by public librarians. The remaining contributors are a K-12 teacher, a publisher, a web developer, and a social worker. Just as the authors are primarily, but not exclusively, librarians, so is the expected audience primarily, but not exclusively, librarians--publishers, parents, teachers, and anyone who deals peripherally with e-books via their library will find a chapter or two of interest. The first chapter gives an overview of four libraries that have gone bookless. Librarians will be familiar with these as they include Cushing Academy and three academic libraries. What may be less familiar is how these libraries have uniformly repurposed former book space with service and student support space. This inaugural chapter is an appropriate launch for the rest of the book because it addresses the question, If we have little or no physical materials, then what will define these spaces as libraries? (1-2). The first third of the book deals with access issues, the middle third with what might be loosely described as opportunities for libraries created by the proliferation of e-books, and the last third with e-reader implementation programs. Access chapters address issues that apply to books with an e-twist: weeding, RDA, and preservation. (2) They also cover issues unique to e-books that are perhaps infrequently considered by e-book managers. Chapter 2, for instance, addresses the digital divide from the viewpoint of a social worker, who suggests that e-books may actually inhibit access to information for the moderately poor because their use requires devices, readers, or Internet access. The chapter gives helpful insights into the limitations of households at the poverty line. Chapter 3 addresses access for the disabled, defined here as a learning, visual or physical disability that makes it difficult or impossible to access print easily (37). The chapter assumes some familiarity with libraries, web protocols, and disability standards, and is the longest and most detailed section of the book. Despite its density, this chapter provides a basic understanding of e-book accessibility issues for those who merely want to skim. Those needing a deeper understanding can learn about assistive technologies, the status of the National Information Standards Organization's (NISO) accessibility initiatives and the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and the current legal environment for e-reading in higher education. Use of mobile devices--a critical topic as librarians increasingly respond to patron questions about downloading e-books to personal devices--is covered in chapter 4. Lisa Carlucci Thomas relates the 2009 Yale study of e-books on four mobile devices (two of which are no longer in popular use) in which Yale librarians tested access to their e-book content on twenty-five e-book platforms. Although the platforms and the rate of e-book acquisition will mirror that of many academic libraries, this chapter will be more useful as a model for similar studies in one's own library rather than for its outcome, which showed that 84 percent of Yale's e-book content could be read, at least minimally, on the devices tested. …