UTC library to offfer Kindles, netbooks for checkout

With students used to "always-on" access through the likes of cell phones, iPod Touches and Twitter, the day is coming when they will expect to have library information at their fingertips, the head of library information technology at UTC says.

"The library needs to pay attention to being in those places," said Jason Griffey, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who is writing a book on how to get libraries into the mobile realm. "That's very, very different from the traditional library model."

This fall, the school's Lupton Library for the first time will offer Kindles, software and hardware platform devices developed by an Amazon.com subsidiary for reading e-books and other digital media. The library's Kindles, available for check-out, will be loaded with public-domain books.

The library also will make available netbooks -- small laptop computers -- for students and have iPod Touches with which students can take an introductory trip through the building and its services.

"I think we're doing some interesting things," Mr. Griffey said, noting the library has little money to fund such technology needs. "We're not where I would want to be. I would love to do more."

When libraries are fully integrated into the mobile realm, students will be able to use their digital devices to access much more information than is available now, he said.

However, Mr. Griffey said, barriers to that access include copyright and digital rights management laws.

"We have lots of physical content such as music, books and videos," he said. "We'd love to put it into a digital format, but moving from analog to digital in that way for most materials is disallowed by copyright law."

Another hindrance to additional digitalization of material is the variety of e-book formats, Mr. Griffey said. Presently, each e-book reader has proprietary technology. The market, he said, eventually will drive the technology to be standardized as it did with video tape players and, more recently, Blu-ray vs. HD DVD formats.

"Then," he said, "it becomes a much more real place for libraries to put their energy and focus."

The general future for libraries, Mr. Griffey said, will require more diligence in "inserting ourselves into the information flow."

"We have to be part of the information ecology," he said, "rather than relying on people coming to us."