SCARBOROUGH — Assistant library director Susan Winch flipped back the cover of her iPad, tapped the screen a couple of times and checked out a book from the Scarborough Public Library.

Starting next week, patrons also will be able to download books in seconds when the library launches its new digital collection.

When the system goes live Oct. 19, the library will become the state’s first — and one of 72 nationwide — to offer 3M’s Cloud Library, a collection of digital books accessible to cardholders from anywhere they log on.

Librarians in Scarborough say the new system is a natural fit for a community where many people already are reading on their smartphones, e-readers and tablet computers. Last year, the library saw an increase of more than 157 percent in the number of digital books borrowed from a statewide service.

It’s not just readers in Scarborough who are turning to their iPhones, tablets and e-readers for the latest book. By 2015, 29.4 million consumers in the United States will own a dedicated e-reader and 82.1 million people will own tablets, according to a 2011 forecast by Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass.

“I think the general trend is we’re seeing an increase in the number of readers who are using e-books,” said Maureen Sullivan, president of the Chicago-based American Library Association. “That is creating for libraries a need to be sure we can offer the book that we would make available in print also (available) in the e-book format.”

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For now, the Scarbrough Cloud Library will not offer nearly as many digital titles as are available in print, but library Director Nancy Crowell expects the gap to narrow as more patrons use e-books and publishers make more titles available. Last year, Scarborough library users checked out more than 4,000 books from the online Maine InfoNet Download Library, up more than 157 percent from the previous year.

The increase in the number of patrons looking for access to digital books allowed the library staff to feel confident enough to make a “significant” investment in access to e-books, Crowell said. The library has spent $31,700 to set up the system, buy the first round of 300 books and pay for five e-readers available for patrons to check out. The town contributed $22,500 toward the project. The rest was funded by donations.

“I think the (library) trustees and Town Council have recognized the important role technology plays” in the library, Winch said. “People in the town are on the go all the time with mobile devices. They expect the library collection to be on the go.”

Patrons will be able to access the Cloud Library remotely or through a “Discovery Terminal” kiosk at the library. To use the kiosk, patrons scan their library cards, then use a large touchscreen to navigate digital bookshelves that display colorful images of book covers. Users can download books, add others to a waiting list, or browse all 200,000 titles available from 3M to add to a wish list that is made available to library staff. The process is the same if patrons log on to the Cloud Library website from home.

The digital “shelves” of books are organized by librarians and already include fiction and nonfiction titles for all children and adults. After checking out a book, patrons can open it on up to six compatible devices. Because information is stored in the Internet-based “cloud,” the most recent page read, bookmarks and notes will be saved for readers on each device they use. Those types of notations cannot be seen by other readers who check out the book.

The Cloud Library is compatible with computers, Nooks, Kobo, Android phones and devices, Sony Readers, Kindle Fires, iPod Touches, iPads and iPhones. Users download and install a free application that allows them to read books on their devices. The Scarborough library bought five 3M e-readers that will be available for adults to borrow.

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Scarborough’s Cloud Library has about 300 books, but Crowell said she hopes to add titles continuously as money becomes available. She has been reaching out to the business community in hopes of lining up donations to buy books, which vary in price from about $12 to more than $100. Books can be checked out by only one user at a time, so the library will buy multiple copies of books in high demand.

While e-books tend to be comparable in cost to their paper counterparts, Winch expects to see savings because they won’t need to be replaced the way physical books do.

“It loses no pages. There’s no wear on the book. There are no fines, because it checks itself in after three weeks,” she said.

Readers who prefer to hold a book and flip through the pages need not worry. Scarborough Public Library will continue to offer traditional paper books. There are no plans to phase out collections or slow down the purchase of new books, Crowell said.

“The library has to position itself to be a technology leader while not giving up its traditional role,” she said.

Part of being a technology leader is offering technology — whether it is an e-reader or computer with Internet access — to people who don’t have access to it otherwise, Winch said.

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“We’re aware there are people in the community who are underserved by technology,” she said. “The library has always been a place of support for people who need to keep with technology changes.”

While the Cloud Library is new to Maine, it already has been well-received at libraries in other states.

The Darien Library in Connecticut began using the Cloud Library about nine months ago, said Alan Gray, the library’s chief administrative officer. The library already offered patrons access to digital books through OverDrive, a digital distributor of more than a million titles used in 19,000 libraries worldwide. The library staff wanted to offer patrons another way to check out e-books, and the response to the Cloud Library has been “very positive,” he said. The library has 626 titles from 3M and 1,651 titles from OverDrive.

Recently, Darien Library staff members spent a week at a local train station talking to commuters about the e-book service because many of them already use e-readers, Gray said.

“It lit up a lot of people’s eyes when they realized how quickly they could get (books),” he said.

Like the Darien Library, the St. Paul Public Library in Minnesota uses both the 3M Cloud Library and OverDrive. Director Kit Hadley said the response to the launch of the Cloud Library has been “great,” especially from people who hadn’t used e-readers before.

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“On launch day, we had a couple older women who came because they wanted to be the first people to borrow an e-reader and borrow a digital book,” she said. “This is a brave new world. It’s an exciting time to be a library.”

The St. Paul library has seen a dramatic increase in the number of e-books borrowed. When the library first offered e-books in April 2011, patrons borrowed 467. Last month, the library circulated 9,543.

Sullivan, of the American Library Association, said increasing access to new technology could attract new users to the library and continue to demonstrate the important role of libraries in the community.

“I believe as we continue to evolve and we’re operating much more in the digital world, there will still be a basic need for human connection,” she said. “I think community leaders increasingly recognize the importance of continuing that library as a community resource.”

 


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