Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris has bigged up the role of e-books in the future of the libraries in the UK.
She said: “If we think about the matter, it is a no-brainer.
“There are one million free books on Kindle, which we ought to try to make available to local people. Kindle has another 500,000 books available to buy. The cost of a Kindle book is usually 50 per cent or two thirds less than the hard copy. The issue is a challenge that we must face head on.”
At this point we need to point out that other electronic book reading devises are available.
As part of her speech in Parliament as reported by Hansard, she said: “The trend towards the use of e-books is increasing. Amazon says-admittedly, we are talking about buying rather than borrowing-that it sells twice as many e-books as hard copy books. What are the implications of that for the library service? What innovative ideas can it come up with that will enable people to access those sorts of books?”
With online libraries, that push for e-books might not be compatible with the physical space the library takes up.
Anne Marie said: “In Newton Abbot, I am lucky that £2.8 million has been spent on a state-of-the-art library. However, it is not only a library, because it will also provide adult learning and an opportunity for adults who want to know how to spend their care budgets to talk to a professional about how they can do that.
“Such an approach will provide an opportunity for children to link together and for individuals to take what looking at books is about to an educational level rather than them simply having an informative role. That is where the opportunity is.”
And how would she sum up the future of libraries?
“First, we need to look at the better use of buildings, which I am pleased to see we are doing. In rural communities, having one or two buildings rather than five or six-if an area is lucky enough to have that number-is the right way forward. Secondly, we need to consider how to move libraries from being knowledge based, which was where they started, to being education and community based. Thirdly, we need to consider the challenge of technology and how libraries can address that.”
(image: Kindle 3 Some rights reserved by kodomut)
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