Bordentown librarian launches counteroffensive
By Amber Cox
BORDENTOWN CITY Twenty-seven may seem like an unimportant number, but with HarperCollins’ e-book policy, if you are the 27th person trying to rent an e-book from the library, you’re looking at a blank screen.
After the 26th checkout, the e-book deletes itself under the HarperCollins policy, and the library is out a book and has to pay for its replacement.
Andy Woodworth, a librarian at the Bordentown branch of the Burlington county library system at East Union Street, on his own time, has started a petition “Tell HarperCollins: limited checkouts on e-books is wrong.” As of Tuesday morning, the petition had almost 67,000 signatures.
”The purpose of the petition is to ask HarperCollins to drop their limited e-book checkout policy for library lending,” Mr. Woodworth said. “Having limited checkouts for the library has potential of creating gaps in the collection.
”It interferes with the role of cultural preservation because if we have something that can expire on us, it does create a gap in the collection, and when you create gaps, it creates an incomplete record of literature.”
His petition states, “I am writing to ask HarperCollins to drop its current limited checkout e-book policy to libraries and develop an e-book policy that supports libraries’ efforts to provide free information to the public.”
Every time someone signs the online petition, a letter automatically is sent to HarperCollins.
Mr. Woodworth said a boycott of e-books in general, from his perspective, is fine, because it’s a policy that can change.
”Boycotting all of the books is a little more drastic,” he said. “I mean, I can understand why people are taking steps, but to me, it goes a little too far. But I’m sure for other people it sends just the right message.”
Mr. Woodworth added books are taken out of circulation all the time because they are damaged, obsolete all different reasons but to have something expire will make the library constantly revisit that book’s title to see if it should repurchase it.
HarperCollins released an open letter to libraries and in it stated if a library were to repurchase a book, it would be at a discounted price.
Mr. Woodworth said he thinks all of the other publishers are watching HarperCollins’ policy to see how it works out.
”I don’t think another publisher would step into this arena unless HarperCollins was successful with it,” he said. “The e-book market is so chaotic right now so when somebody tries something, when a publisher tries this kind of policy, everybody is going to be watching to see how it goes.”
Mr. Woodworth added that if HarperCollins is successful, he believes other publishers will follow in its footsteps.
”If they’re not, there’s no way they’re going to follow it,” he said. “This might lead to other kinds of lending modes that publishers may want to try. I don’t know what those are yet, but I’m sure we’ll find out.”
Mr. Woodworth said he is not against the digital age of books, and it actually realizes a dream.
”I think it realizes a dream that people have had for centuries, of having information, of having something that can be very easily and simultaneously delivered to any individual on the planet that has an Internet connection,” he said. “I think e-books realize that dream. I think it creates a new generation of information sharing.”
Mr. Woodworth said e-books are a computer file that essentially can be shared and “allows the e-book to reach more people quickly.”
”With so many people sharing what they read online . . . that allowing for a more permissive e-book lending model, you can have a lot of people get it at once, and then it can really control conversations,” he said. “If someone sees it on their Facebook feeds, on their Twitter feeds . . . it can create a buzz just through sheer volume.”
Mr. Woodworth said he doesn’t think books will ever be obsolete.
”An example I give is that if you look at visions of the future, like something like ‘Star Trek,’ people are still reading books on ‘Star Trek,’” he said. “They are actually considered prized objects. They will pick things up that look like a tablet computer, where they are reading reports, but their prized possessions are paperbacks.”
There are still people on the other side of the digital divide the technological haves and the have-nots, he said.
”We’re in an area that’s a ‘have.’ Not everyone has broadband but it’s accessible. If they come to the library, they can be online.”
So the librarian and his 67,000 fellow book aficionados are doing their part to ensure books are there to stay in the library and not to self-destruct.
To sign Mr. Woodworth’s petition visit, www.change.org/petitions/tell-harpercollins-limited-

