The Digital Shift from School Library Journal (Nov. 30, 2011) reports:
Penguin Group’s temporary suspension of Kindle access to its titles for libraries last week reaffirmed Wendy Stephen’s decision to go the public domain route. The school librarian at Buckhorn High School in New Market, AL, had feared just this situation: spending money on devices and titles only to have the rights potentially taken away and her students left without books.
“It’s too complicated and too dicey, and that’s why I decided to go with things not under copyright because it’s a lot cleaner that way,” says Stephens, who offers ebooks to her students—but only those that are free.
Penguin quickly decided to restore all access to its current digital titles, at least through the end of the year. But the company still restricts access to any new titles for library lending as it works out details with Amazon and OverDrive about how ebooks are returned or removed from Kindles when checked out by patrons.
But the effect of Penguin’s initial decision to pull its titles has a deeper meaning for school librarians and teachers who operate on slender budgets and can’t afford to have valuable classroom resources taken away from them. With schools just beginning to use Kindles, among other ereaders, the consequences of having titles vanish during the school year is particularly detrimental, leaving students without books for assignments and teachers scrambling to find alternatives.
Read the rest of Lauren Barack’s article HERE