ALA Goes to New York, Things Don’t Get Violent

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This week, ALA leadership met with senior management from Penguin, Macmillan, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Perseus publishing houses to discuss ebooks and libraries. ALA went in with a strong mission statement from ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels: “Dialog begins with saying you need to deal with libraries and you need to do it as soon as possible.” But for some, this declaration might have been a bit strong.

The Annoyed Librarian seems to have been a bit annoyed by ALA’s use of assertive language. “There’s some tough talk from the ALA Executive Director… . I’ve attended a lot of meetings in my time and I’ve never seen one that began so belligerently accomplish anything.” Despite the Annoyed Librarian’s characterization of Fiels’s statement as a godfather-esque threat, assertiveness is what many librarians want from their organization.

In March of last year, Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton took ALA to task for being too timid with HarperCollins. “Speak out and speak out now, ALA. Reassert libraries’ rights to lend materials. Reassert libraries’ responsibilities to the public good. And reassert libraries’ roles in our communities as cultural and thought leaders… . Please, say something to the world—or the rest of us will keep talking loudly, angrily, and unofficially.”

Assertiveness seems to have worked out well. I assume that the lack of reporting on broken legs, horses’ heads, or other violent acts during the ALA/publisher meetings means that Annoyed Librarian’s perception of ALA heading to New York “talking like gangsters from The Godfather” might have been a bit dramatic. Instead, the meetings are being characterized as upbeat, productive, and substantive. An immediate outcome from ALA’s work is an announcement from Random House on a new model for ebook lending with a higher upfront price, but no additional restrictions on loans.

As Dennis Johnson, copublisher at Melville House, wrote of the meetings: “It’s one of those modern situations that no one in publishing ever imagined: Being at odds with librarians, the ultimate champions of literacy and literature. But that’s been the situation as publishers have tried to figure out how, exactly, to handle selling ebooks to libraries.” But, Johnson noted, the announcement from Random House shows progress is being made thanks to these meetings. “Thus is history made. Now we wait and see how long it takes the remaining Big Five to follow suit.”

For a more detailed report from ALA President Molly Raphael on ALA’s meetings with publishers, check back to the E-Content blog next week.