One of the missions of libraries is to provide access to all sorts of information, including e-books. If an e-book is already open-access, what role is left for libraries play?
Here's a thought-experiment for libraries: imagine that the library's entire collection is digital. Should it include Shakespeare? Should it include Moby Dick? These are available as public domain works from Project Gutenberg; providing these editions in a library collection might seem to be superfluous. Many librarians have been trying to convince their patrons that "free stuff on the Internet" is often inferior to the quality information available through libraries. There are certainly e-book editions of these works available for purchase with better illustrations, better editing, annotations, etc. Should libraries try to steer patrons to these resources instead of using the free stuff?
For the most part, libraries have not done a good job of incorporating resources such as those available from Project Gutenberg into their digital collections. Overdrive, the leading provider of e-books to public libraries, now offers Project Gutenberg titles for no extra charge, but they are offered as a separate collection. At present, if a user searches for Moby Dick in a library collection, a result will be returned only if the library has a purchased edition of Moby Dick, which may be in use by another patron. A separate search must be done to retrieve the free edition.
As we saw in the section on types of open-access, for an e-book to really be open-access, there must be an appropriate license (or public domain status) and effective access. There are a number of ways that libraries can work to make that access effective, both individually and through cooperative effort. Similarly, open-access e-books can play an important role in supporting the mission of libraries. This section will consider libraries' roles in access, selection, archiving, community, and production of open-access e-books.
