King County Library System (KCLS) is funded by property taxes. Not only does it offer a wide collection of books and magazines as you would expect from any good library, it also offers e-books, music CDs, e-books, even devices, and the list goes on. They have red colored library-t0-go trucks in which the library can come to your school once every week, carrying books that would appeal to the targeted age group. On the digital front, the KCLS mobile app allows you to check out Kindle books and also integrates with Audible, Overdrive and several other formats and channels. So much innovation and it is incredibly impressive. Their tag line is – ‘Turn to us. The choices will surprise you.”
So far so good. Many times when I try to check out a book using the app, the app tells me ‘All copies in use’ and gives me an option to put my selection on hold. I will be notified via email once a patron returns their checked-out copy, and the book will be ready for me to check out at my selected library location. Understandable, because books are physical in nature, and there are limited number of copies to go around. The problem is that this even happens with e-Books!
The music industry has evolved its business model such that the same song can be streamed unlimited number of times, simultaneously, by an infinite number of people. The artist or the entity with the rights to that song is paid a royalty each time the song is streamed. The book industry on the other hand digitized the books into digital formats, but has been unable to transform its traditional business models, especially when it comes to their contracts with libraries. Even though technologically it is possible to eliminate wait times from the customer experience, the real transformation will occur when entities in the ecosystem rewrite their contractual relationships to exploit digital possibilities.