MoCo Council E-Book Resolution Is About Libraries -- Not Authors

The Montgomery County Council July 23 approved a resolution putting the County on record as saying that patrons of County libraries "should have equitable access to e-books at fair prices."   The vote was 8-0-1.

One Councilmember abstained from the vote. Nancy Floreen, whose husband, David O. Stewart, is an author, said the issue of e-book pricing was "complicated," and said from the bench she didn't think the Council should get into the issue because it didn't have jurisdiction. Rather than raise a fuss, she said she would abstain and let the resolution go through. She, and Stewart, are concerned about how authors make money in the digital age.

That's a reasonable attitude for authors to take, but it is irrelevant to the discussion and the resolution. The Council first and foremost is speaking about an issue that impacts the County library budgets and the services it provides to the two-thirds of County residents who use the libraries.

If the County has to pay $50 or $80 to lease one e-book, it will lease fewer copies from the companies which supply the e-books. This fact has a couple of implications. First, it hurts the libraries because patrons will have to wait much longer for materials they request. Obviously there are limits, but some can be prevented.

Second, the high prices hurt authors. Instead of spending $80 on one e-book, the library could spend the same money on four if the book were reasonably priced. That means four times the number of people will have access to the author's work, leading to greater chances that he or she might find a reader willing to buy a book, to say nothing of the greater satisfaction of library patrons.

It's in the nature of e-books to present more challenges to authors and publishers than do printed books. Then again, as with digital music, publishers have been able to abolish through computer code that part of the law that allows for resale of any normal good. It's called the First Sale doctrine. If you buy a physical book, you can do what you want -- give it away, donate it, sell it to someone else. You can't do that with e-books. Every e-book is a new e-book. Authors should factor that into their equations also.

The E-Book Saga Continues: On Defending Libraries From An Author

Noted author David O. Stewart has submitted a statement to the Montgomery County Council opposing a resolution asking for libraries to have equitable access to e-books at reasonable prices. While I respect Mr. Stewart's work (and that of his wife, Councilmember Nancy Floreen), I am deeply disappointed that he appears to misunderstand the role of libraries in our society.

Libraries do not exist for the benefit of authors. That's what bookstores are for. Libraries exist for the benefit of everyone. Access to books should not depend on whether you can afford one. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough said, "The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system." Consider the experience of a youthful Robert Redford: "I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book."

In fact, libraries benefit authors in their work. Samuel Johnson wrote long ago, "The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book." I wonder what it would cost an historian if he or she had to buy each book used for research. Quite a bit, I would think. Wander through the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress some time. I suggest you will find quite a few scholars working on books of their own, using this largest of public libraries to do research.

Libraries do not exist through the goodwill of authors, who, in Stewart's words have a "largely sentimental wish" to support libraries, even though through the goodness of their heart they are foregoing the income they are giving up by having someone borrow the book the author has written. Authors labor under the misapprehension that any loan of a library book is a lost sale. Maybe yes, maybe no. If an author wants to expose his or her writing to the public, the library is the best place to do that. People can sample works and then buy that book or another by the same author, if they like what they read. Research shows that happens.

Libraries exist as a benefit to their communities. They are a social good, like public schools which don't charge students for books. For the record, libraries do not, as Stewart put it, "give away" books. They loan books. Physical books are returned to the library. E-books simply disappear from a library customer's e-reader when the loan is up. I don't see where "the lending of e-books for free" is a problem.

Instead, the problem might be the nature of e-books themselves. Writers are harmed, we are led to believe, by e-books that never degrade. First, they never degrade if someone buys them, so that's no different from a library. Second, books degrade at different rates. Wander through a library, particularly the hardbacks, and you will find any number of volumes that are in fine shape. Not all books become "too tattered" to loan. Some do, some don't.

But publishers have taken it upon themselves to set arbitrary standards and policies for e-books than for physical books that have nothing to do with authors. In that case, those representing authors might be best served by signing contracts barring their works from being distributed in electronic form rather than charge libraries five or six times the cost of a physical book or limiting the number of check-outs. Those policies hurt libraries by inflating their budgets, which in turn hurts authors by limiting the distribution of their work.

Finally, Stewart's article lands us in the Constitution, but he leaves out a crucial phrase. In quoting Article 1, Section 8, clause 8 which provides for a system of copyright protection, he left out the part about securing rights to authors and inventors only "for limited times," as Framers recognized that ideas and discoveries should pass at some point into the public domain. That part of the Constitution was not written to protect authors; the goal was "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Instead, that part of the Constitution has been stretched to unrecognizable dimensions through copyright extensions which benefit authors, something Stewart also doesn't mention.

If the fate of the book culture is to "shrivel and die," as Stewart puts it, the cause won't be libraries. Just the opposite. If anything, it will be our libraries which keep "the book culture" alive.

MoCo To Take Stand For Libraries on E-Books

The Montgomery County Council yesterday voiced support for equitable treatment of e-books for library users.

Seven of the nine Council members supported a resolution putting the Council on record as recognizing that libraries pay more for e-books than do consumers and that it's time for Maryland and the Federal government to recognize the problem.

The resolution was sponsored by Council Vice President Craig Rice, the lead member for libraries, and cosponsored by six of his colleagues, including Council President Nancy Navarro and Councilmember George Leventhal, who is chairman of the committee that oversees libraries.  During the introduction, Rice said it was "extremely important" to highlight the issue of inequitable pricing.  Leventhal agreed that e-books should be "more accessible."

Here is the text of the resolution:

COUNTY COUNCIL FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND

By: Council Vice President Rice, Councilmember Leventhal, Council President Navarro, and
Councilmembers Andrews and Ervin

SUBJECT: Equitable access to e-books for Montgomery County Public Libraries
Background
1. Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) serve 721,385 (as of the end ofFY 2012) cardholders from all parts ofa large, diverse county.
2. MCPL strives to deliver materials in all available formats to meet the interests and requirements of those patrons.
3. The demand for e-books in Montgomery County is increasing exponentially. There was an 88% growth in e-book checkouts between 2010 and 2011, and an 87% growth in demand between 2011 and 2012. The trend shows no signs of slowing down.
4. Through actions of the County and its budget process, the Council approved an additional $300,000 in the Fiscal Year 2014 MCPL operating budget to address customer demand for e-books. This budget item supports the MCPL's Strategic Goal #1: "Strengthening Our Communities' Passion for Reading, Viewing and Listening by diversifying our collection to meet the evolving needs of our residents."
5. The needs of Montgomery County library users, as with users of libraries around the country, are being severely hampered by the actions of the book publishing industry. According to the March 4, 2013 pricing comparison from the Douglas County, Colo., library, which compiles such statistics monthly, the top book on the New York Times fiction best seller list is unavailable to libraries in e-book format. Nine of the top 15 books on the fiction list are not available to libraries as they are to consumers. The #5 fiction book, A Week in Winter, by Maeve Binchy, costs libraries $80.85 to license, while consumers pay $12.99 to license use of the same book. These prices place a strain on the MCPL budget and limit the access ofe-books to library patrons.
6. The American Library Association, of which MCPL is a member, has consistently protested this discriminatory behavior by publishers.

Action

The County Council for Montgomery County, Maryland approves the following resolution:
The Council believes that patrons ofthe Montgomery County Public Libraries should have equitable access to e-books at fair prices.

Therefore, the Council urges the General Assembly, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission to examine this issue and seek any appropriate remedy so that County library users will have the access to materials in a reasonable and non-discriminatory manner.
This is a correct copy of Council action.

Campaign To Lower E-Book Prices For Libraries Gets Started in Connecticut

While the e-book world takes a minute to digest the court ruling finding Apple conspired with book publishers to jack up the price of e-books to consumers, it's worth noting that there is another e-book pricing battle going on.

Consumers are the ultimate victims here, also, but those most directly affected are public libraries. Some book publishers don't lease e-books to libraries at all, depriving library customers of versions of popular best-sellers. Others set the lease rates exorbitantly high, squeezing the already squeezed library budget.

The American Library Association (ALA), and particularly former President Maureen Sullivan, have raised the issue loudly and persistently, but the publishers haven't been terribly responsive. Now, state and local governments are just starting to become involved on behalf of their libraries and the library patrons.

Connecticut appears to be the first state to go on record as recognizing the problem, while Montgomery County, Md., is poised to become the first local government to weigh in.

In Connecticut, Gov. Dan Malloy (D) on June 6 signed a bill requiring the state attorney general and the state librarian to conduct a study on the availability of e-books to public library customers. The study will have a broad mandate, taking in such topics as surveying current practices used by publishers and distributors (companies like Overdrive or Baker & Taylor, which supply the software to make the e-books available to libraries), to determine if there are any problems with those practices and if so, what to do about them.

The requirement of a study was the last compromise in the legislative process, which started out with a bill by State Rep. Brian Sear (D) "to require publishers of electronic books to offer such books for sale to public and academic libraries at the same rates as offered to the general public." That bill would mean the publishers couldn't charge the public $12.99 for an e-book and charge libraries $85 for the same e-book, which is the practice now.

Richard Conroy, head of the Connecticut Library Association, (CLA) said he got interested in a legislative campaign when Random House raised the prices on e-books for the 26 libraries in the south central part of the state. "The tripling of prices was the last straw," Conroy said in an interview, adding that CLA lobbyist Bob Shea said there should be some way to pass legislation to "hold the publishers feet to the fire." State Rep. Brian Sear (D), whose wife worked for the Connecticut Library Consortium, agreed to sponsor a bill.

The first version of the bill required publishers to "offer e-books for sale to public and academic libraries at the same rates as offered to the general public." That bill got the attention of publishers, who fought the bill in the statehouse and carried their complaints to Connecticut legislators in Congress. Conroy said the publishers calls the bill unconstitutional, said it abridged their First Amendment rights and generally "raised a big stink." The publisher team was formidable -- the biggest print publishers, plus Apple and Amazon. Even with that lineup opposing it, the bill gained momentum and cosponsors.

Conroy said he plans to keep working on the issue, and that he hoped the Connecticut bill could be a model for other states. That's a great idea. States should study the pricing of e-books, and pass on to Congress and Federal agencies their findings.

How To Play The Washington Scandal Game

It's no shame to admit that sports can be confusing. Some baseball fans don't know what the infield fly rule is. Some basketball fans may not recognize the difference between a blocking foul and a charge. At least there are game officials and broadcasters who can help to clarify matters as they take place.

Unfortunately, for one of Washington's biggest spectator sports, not only are the rules not clear, the game itself is always out of focus. So in the public interest, herewith is a primer to "Scandal." Not the TV show, but the Congressional show. Some seasons there are lots of scandals, some seasons there are few. There always is at least one for members of Congress to perform. We happen to be in a busy Scandal season of which Kerry Washington and cast-mates are not a part. This is reality TV.

The first basic fact to understanding what constitutes a scandal might be called the Gerald Ford Rule. When Ford (R-Mich.) was a member of the House, he said, on a related topic, "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." That's right. It's a game without rules. For some people, a scandal might mean a president trying to get one government agency to quash the investigation being conducted by another, or a president paying hush money. For others, it might be a president selling weapons to one group and funneling the money to another group to conduct a war that Congress has expressly forbidden.

And yet, for some people, a scandal might mean an obscure land deal in which participants lost money or, heaven forbid, a dalliance with a woman not a prominent politician's wife. Not like that could happen.

For still others, an overwhelmed bureaucracy trying to get a handle on an increasing workload by taking short cuts could be a scandal, particularly if there is a handy political angle to exploit. Or some might try to make a tragic, swiftly moving situation half a world away into a scandal based on normal bureaucratic review processes of talk-show talking points. Sigh.

Scandal Strategies

Simply because there are no rules doesn't mean there are no strategies and tactics. Some are fairly basic, to wit:

Box Out Your Opponents: What matters is making your opponent look bad. Take the controversy over looking into journalists' phone records after a mole in Al Qaeda could have been exposed. There are lots of ways the issue could have been played. Position 1: This is outrageous that Obama is tracking journalists. Position 2: Look how lax they are on national security not to track down a leak like this. The Republicans could have used either one to make Obama look bad.

Or take the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) controversy: Position 1: Obama and his people in Washington were controlling the Cincinnati office. Position 2: The President didn't interfere, but that's because he is out of the loop is he with his own government.

Be A Victim: It helps to be seen as a victim of some government alleged malfeasance. Let's go back to the IRS thing again. The outrage on the part of Republicans and the right wing groups could have been rehearsed, and it was.

In April 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report on "Rightwing Extremism," saying that the downturn in the economy could boost recruiting for rightwing groups, particularly as organizations play up opposition to immigration and fear of tighter gun controls.

The Great Noise Machine geared up and denounced the report, although we note they didn't say a word about a report on Leftwing extremism that had been issued a couple of months earlier. Then-Minority Leader John Boehner called it "offensive and unacceptable," and every blogger, columnist, commentator and radio personality dumped on the report, calling it a "hit job," among other crass characterizations. The new Obama Administration quickly withdrew the report, and decimated the DHS section which produced it.

If this sounds familiar, the victimization story is the same script now being followed by the poor Tea Partiers who wailed of their cruel treatment at the hands of an oppressive government. There's one other element to this story, which leads to the next tactic:

Know Your Opponents: In the 2009 DHS "scandal," Democrats played along and denounced the report, just as today's Democrats are playing along and denouncing what the IRS did. Their alternative course would have been to defend the Obama Administration, but that would require some backbone, which Democrats are notoriously lacking. Just as with the panicked reaction to a right-wing hit job film on an Agriculture Dept. employee, Democrats acted in fear first. They fired Shirley Sherrod before the whole truth of the edited video came out, just as they tossed out IRS officials who were trying to make their way through a deluge of applications with few people and unclear legal landscape. The reason that Republicans and their winger opponents can get away with this is the fundamental truth of scandal-mongering:

Facts Don't Matter.

In the case of the 2009 DHS report, it was true that right-wing extremism was on the rise. In the case of the IRS report, it is true that some right wing groups were abusing their tax privileges by engaging in political activity prohibited by the tax status they claimed, that the damning Inspector General report was sloppy, and that left-wing groups like Progress Texas were also questioned as they should have been by the IRS. Speech is a protected right; a tax exemption isn't. Even so, what isn't true is that the groups had their tax exemptions denied.

What isn't true in the IRS "scandal" is that Bush Administration appointee Douglas Shulman went to the White House 157 times to coordinate attacks on the right wing, as conservative commentators have screamed. He went 11 times, and mostly to meet on health care-related issues.

What isn't true about Bengazi is that the standard, if intense, interagency process to clear public talking points for national TV shows while protecting national security and adhering to the best information the government had at the time, is a cover up.

Scandal As Means, Not End

For all the fussing, the scandal game isn't an end in itself. The scandals are a distraction.  The scandal-mongers know all they have to do is scream loud enough, and the media will jump on it, regardless of the merits or the facts.

It's easier, to throw unsubstantiated charges around than to do work through the hard, detailed process of a real budget resolution. It's more fun to drag bureaucrats before a committee than it is to look at the economic situation and come up with a way to get people back to work.

It's more appealing to the "base" to nullify an election result through phony charges posturing, and procedural roadblocks than to accept that the country needs a functioning legislative body -- something we don't now have.

A Sad and Odd Day

The other evening early last week, we got a call from a friend that the father of one of another friend had died. He was 81, had been having some health issues. At the end, a kidney transplant didn't take and he didn't make it.

Visitors were welcome to see the family at a funeral home in Ellicott City later in the week. When the time came to go, I wasn't sure what the name of the funeral home was, so I looked on the Google machine for all funeral homes in Ellicott City and found one that sounded like the one I had been told. It was Witzke's, which was close to the name I had hastily scribbled down.

Not being familiar with Ellicott City, I decided to go to the Witzke Web site to get directions.  There, in the right hand column, was the name of our friend's father, Hoffman, William H. And right below him, was another name, Krainak, Danielle M.

I went to high school with a Danielle Krainak. There couldn't be two people with that name. When I clicked on the listing on the funeral home's web site, the birth date was certainly in the range. I called the funeral home to inquire about where she went to high school, and was told they didn't have that information. As it turns out, the viewings for William Hoffman, father of our friend Kay Gold, and for Danielle Krainak, were at the same time. Before going up, I posted something on Facebook on our Wheaton High School class page.

When we got to the funeral home, my wife Liz went straight and to the left, to Kay's father's viewing. I turned right to the Krainak gathering. I had hoped to see someone familiar, perhaps someone from Wheaton. No such luck. As I stood looking around, a staff member from the funeral home came up to me and asked, politely, if I was in the correct room. I told her my story of knowing the Golds and of knowing Danielle. She was somewhat taken aback. It doesn't happen every day. I asked to speak with a family member and was directed to Danielle's sister, Maryann.

She was talking with two neighbors. I introduced myself and told her how I came to be there. We had a very nice conversation. In inquired, as politely as I could, what Danielle had been doing the last 40 years (she was a physical therapist) and how she died (kidney cancer). Her neighbors said Danielle had helped them even though they weren't official patients. After a few minutes, I excused myself, signed the guest book (WHS 70) and left, but not before taking a peek at the coffin.

Just for the record, I am not a fan of open coffins. It's one of the things I like about Jewish funerals -- we don't have them. But I looked for a second at Danielle, and realized this was the first time I had attended the death of a classmate. A few of the people in my high school class have died already, but I wasn't nearby. This was different.

Then I walked out and across the hall, where Kay's brother was speaking of their father's life and accomplishments. I was startled by another open casket, forgetting Kay's father wasn't Jewish. He was, Kay's brother said, agnostic on religion. I told some people why I was late coming in. They couldn't believe it either.

The Lost Lessons of Albany, via Boston and Pakistan

At the end of the week before the Boston Marathon bombing, a little story started making waves out of Albany, NY. Under normal circumstances, the story would have provided lots of raw material for the cable news noise factory.

The story about a high school writing assignment then dropped out of sight in the aftermath of the tragic events of the week of April 15. After watching the HBO documentary, "Manhunt: The Search for bin Laden,"  it's worth revisiting the story because of the lessons that could be learned. It's worth revisiting because of the importance to America if we don't learn them.

On the surface, the story appeared to be another in the series of High School Administrations Gone Crazy,  like the recent story of a girl getting arrested, charged with a felony and expelled from school for mixing some chemicals and popped the top off of an 8 oz. bottle and created a little smoke.

But what happened in Albany is more serious because you can draw a direct line from there to the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing via Baghdad and Pakistan. The story broke on April 12, about a high-school teacher who gave his/her 10th grade class an assignment in persuasive writing. What touched off the furor that led to the teacher's unfortunate suspension and an apology from the Albany school superintendent was the subject matter of the assignment: Nazi Germany.

The Controversial Assignment

Here is the assignment for three sophomore honors English classes: "For the following assignment you need to pretend that I am a member of the government of Nazi Germany, and you are being challenged to convince me that you are loyal to the Nazis by writing an essay convincing me that Jews are evil and the source of our problems." The as-yet-unnamed teacher also included this admonition: "You do not have a choice in your position -- you must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich." Part of the assignment was to incorporate Aristotle's elements of argument -- reason, emotional appeal and passion.

The reaction was incendiary. One of the three classes declined to do the assignment, with one student quoted as saying she didn't want to say anything bad about Jewish people. Letters to the Albany Times-Union and comments on the paper's Web site said the teacher should be fired. Some, but not all, Jewish groups and assorted rabbis condemned the assignment.

Two points of context are also in order. One: The school district admitted the assignment was part of a more rigorous curriculum requiring sophisticated writing. Two: The assignment was in preparation for reading Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel's book, "Night," which told of his experiences as a child in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Clearly, there was a context to the assignment.

Even more important, however, is the other skill being taught, and that's the link to Boston. The students in Albany had they done the assignment, would have had to think like a Nazi would have thought. That skill, call it critical thinking or whatever term of art you like, is the most important of all. What was important about the Albany assignment was that it was hard and even offensive. While students and others had alternative proposals, none would have been so valuable as to make a person think as someone to be despised.

All through the Boston investigation, law enforcement officials were trying to make up profiles of the bombers. Every day, stories are in the newspapers trying to figure out what made the Tsarnaev brothers do what they did. To get to the why, you have to get into the head of the person.

Know Thine Enemy

This process is not new. Sun Tzu advised generals to "know thine enemy" 2,500 years ago. In the HBO documentary, the theme that pops up time and again is how ignorant we are as Americans and how important it is to under the other side's mindset.

Susan Hasler, who edited CIA daily report to the president said, speaking of terrorists: "Most people don't understand why they hate us." Stanley McChrystal, commander special operations units: "I'm not sure America has made the effort that it needs to to understand what it is we just went through. The really key part is not how to do these operations. The thing to understand is why are the people we are fighting are doing what they are doing? Why is the enemy the enemy? If you don't understand why they are doing it, it's very difficult to stop it. We don't speak the language enough. We don't understand the culture enough. We haven't taken the time to not be blind, deaf and dumb in the areas of the world that matter to us."

The Albany assignment was a first step to showing students how to think about the "why" by thinking as someone else would think. That doesn't mean they have to agree with the Nazi philosophy. This was not a case of Miss Jean Brodie trying to indoctrinate her students into the glories of Depression-era fascism.

This was nothing like the other mindless "similar" stories appended to most news reports, of teachers using devices like the number of lashes a slave would receive to teach math.  Albany was an unfortunate case of extreme and unwarranted sensitivity to something abhorrent. No one asked the students to agree with the Nazis, only to think as they might have, just as CIA analysts must think as terrorists think, just as FBI agents are thinking as the Tsarnaev brothers did.

Everyone involved should see the loss of passing up an opportunity for a valuable teachable moment on the importance of being able to put yourself into the mind of even the most disreputable person with an abhorrent ideology. That's an important skill -- the kind of skill that later in life could help students with any kind of situation, from figuring out where a wandering child might go to tracking down the world's most notorious terrorist.