Controlled Digital Lending for Libraries and Consortia

00:30 - Welcome everybody. Thanks for joining us. We’ll get started in about a minute.

01:02 - Thanks for joining us, everyone, and welcome. we’ll be starting in about a half a minute.

01:31 - Alright, let’s go ahead and get started. Thank you for joining us today. I’m Cliff Lynch I’m the director of the Coalition for network information, and I’ll be introducing this session.

01:43 - This is one of the synchronous project briefings that is making up the first week of our two week.

01:53 - Spring 2021 virtual member meeting for CNI.

01:59 - We have a number of synchronous project briefings for you. And I’ll just mention that we are relying considerably more heavily on pre recorded on demand project briefings for this meeting.

02:18 - So we are complementing the synchronous briefings with quite a rich assortment of pre recorded on demand sessions which you can find on scared, and I invite you to enjoy those as your time and interests permit.

02:37 - Next week we will be doing plenary days. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and I hope you can join us for those this session, like pretty much all of the sessions for this spring virtual meeting is being recorded.

02:53 - The recording will be publicly available at the conclusion of the meeting, and will join the collection of videos that CIA has made public, based on its meeting presentations.

03:10 - A couple of mechanical things. We have got a chat, feel free to use it, feel free to introduce yourself or make comments as we go along.

03:21 - There is a q amp a tool at the bottom of your screen and you can use that to post questions at any point during the presentation as they occur to you.

03:35 - Diane golden Burkhardt from CNI will join the panelists.

03:42 - At the conclusion of the presentations and will field as many of those questions as well as comments in the chat as we can. We also have the ability to turn on people, to enable people to make comments by audio and if you want to do that during q&a please just raise your hand.

04:07 - I think that’s all that Oh, and there is closed captioning available, please avail yourself of that, if it’s helpful for you.

04:16 - I think that’s all the mechanical things I want to say we have just a wonderful panel today.

04:23 - And Chris Freeland from the Internet Archive will introduce it in just a moment.

04:31 - You can see the list of our panelists and their affiliations here. I just want to say a couple of words about the broad topic here. Control digital lending has been around for a while.

04:45 - I think it’s actually quite an important tool and development.

04:52 - Although it’s only part of the, the array of challenges that our libraries face in operating in a digital environment.

05:03 - There’s also the born digital material to deal with.

05:09 - Early on before the pandemic. I think I characterize control digital lending is something that a lot of people were somewhat uncomfortable with the pandemic and the need to clearly off, have libraries operate in the public interest and serving the public as well as students and and faculty in the university setting, really drove adoption of this in my mind to the point where it really feels quite widely adopted to me now and increasingly uncontroversial and being viewed as part of the fundamental set of tools activities so I think it’s really timely, to have a panel like this.

Taking a look at where libraries and library can source you are in moving along with these practices.

06:14 - So I’m really glad to have our panelists here with us, and I look forward to some lively q amp A at the end. And with that, I’ll just thank our panelists and thank you for joining us.

06:27 - I’ll disappear shut up and turn it over to Chris.

06:33 - Thanks cliff. Well, good morning. Good day. Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Chris Freeland I’m the director of the open libraries program at the Internet Archive and I want to welcome you to today’s session on control digital lending for libraries and consortia as Cliff mentioned you know libraries are looking for common sense ways to make their collections available to patrons in the coven era, and really beyond control digital ending is a long standing on a widespread library practice and in use now by hundreds of libraries for more than 10 years that has demonstrated its value to libraries into the communities that we serve.

while our print collections have largely been on available for the past year.

07:15 - There’s also a new nonprofit on the scene library futures, that that’s aiming to help. And so in our session today. You’re going to hear from library futures.

07:23 - And you’re also going to hear from CBl experts and from libraries about control digital lending, especially as viewed through a consortium lens, what does it mean for a consortia to a consortium to adopt CL as part of its surface service portfolio.

07:38 - So that’s what we’re going to be exploring in our conversations today. So here’s the game plan. We’re going to do introductions around the around the table here, let you get to know the the folks who are going to be speaking for the next hour or so a less than an hour, and we’re going to, you’ll hear from Jenny, the executive director of library futures, where they’re going to do some context setting, each person on the panel is going to give a three minutes or so of the view of CDL for libraries and consortium from their perspective.

08:08 - And then we’re going to go into open discussion we have some questions for facilitation. But please, we’d also like to make this a lively session so as as Cliff indicated at the top.

08:19 - If you have questions, please either use like the q amp a feature to submit your questions or use the chat or if you want to ask them allow that would be great as well.

08:28 - Keep it lively. And what we’ll do is all work I’ll facilitate the conversation and I’ll work in the questions from the, from the room into, into our into our guided discussion so I think it should be a good conversation that’s what we’re really hoping for today is a conversation among colleagues among friends in some cases, so that you can hear really how control digital lending is being rationalized and thought about from libraries and consortia, a couple of pro tips, you might want to watch this in speaker view will also go into gallery view for the open discussions.

09:01 - When we’re all talking on screen but speaker view would be good in the first half of our presentation, just so you get the person speaking. And then also, as I mentioned, just send your questions as they as they come up and I’ll weave those into the discussion.

09:16 - So let’s go into introductions around the room and in no particular order looking here at my little Brady Bunch window. How about starting with Jenny.

09:28 - Hi, my name is Jenny Bruce Halperin I use your pronouns and I am the Executive Director of library futures.

09:37 - Thanks Jenny How about over to Charlie. Hi everyone, my name is Charlie Bravo I’m the executive director of the Boston library Consortium. Great to be here with you.

09:48 - Thanks Shirley How about Jill. Hi, I’m Joel Hurst wall, I’m a board member for library futures and a consultant writer speaker, former academic living in Syracuse, New York.

10:05 - To do it all and do it well. And last but certainly not least, Kyle k Courtney.

10:10 - Hi everyone. Yes, Courtney, I am. Normally, I am the coverage advisor at Harvard library but I am on my lunch break today and I’m representing here as co founder and Chair of the Board of library features happy to be here.

10:27 - Thanks for that everyone. And so let’s let’s turn it over to Jenny and it just occurs to me Jenny, I think I will have to advance the slide so just give me the indication of when you want me to advance the next slide, for sure.

10:42 - So I’ll keep this brief so that you can all hear from me, the real studio experts here and the real folks who really worked with commercial with consortia.

10:51 - So library futures is a new nonprofit organization that champions the right to equitable access to knowledge, Chris, can you advance the slide.

11:06 - Our mission is to build a coalition and community that empowers libraries to take control of their digital futures.

11:14 - So what does this look like more practically. Next slide.

11:21 - So library features enables collective action, while building power through an advocacy organization. We respond to 21st century needs operate at the speed of change and level the playing field between publishers in the public, we empower libraries to fulfill their mission to provide non discriminatory open access to culture for the public good. Together we can change the paradigm. Together we are library features.

11:43 - So we’re here for the technology problems that have future of libraries.

11:48 - We’re here to have the conversation to do the education to the advocacy, and in some cases Stevens help incubate, the technology behind that support library and the library and their access goals.

12:02 - So if you feel like the conversation like the issues around technology and access impact you your Consortium, or your library in particular, we’re here to work together and we’ll talk a little bit more about what it means to be a coalition partner of library features and just a moment.

12:19 - So, the principles of the organization itself are six are world is digital protect the right to lend library Smith’s own content not license it equitable access is the future of libraries.

12:32 - Privacy is not for sale. and we are stronger together.

12:36 - So with your support, we’re looking to build a movement of an activist oriented library group that will push back on publisher created structures and anti digital practices.

12:46 - These are our lodestar and if you do decide to come on as a coalition partner which I hope you do and I hope you’re interested in.

12:53 - This is this this is the support that you’re signaling they influence what kind of policy we advocate for what programs we run and help guide us morally.

13:01 - So we have a proposed set of programs and again, all of this is on our website so I’m going to pass it over in just a moment. And, including much more fleshed out version of the principles and the perfect can also be found on our website as well.

13:15 - So we’ve only been around live for seven weeks.

13:20 - But we’ve done some awesome things including a myth busting session on CL with the Internet Archive, and a end of ownership event so the authors of the end of ownership came and spoke with Fair Use week and for fair use week.

13:36 - In April, we have a book talk coming up with Joanne McNeil the author of lurking which explores users and patrons and libraries.

13:45 - With dairies Kazemi who is a technologist and thought writer has a really incredible artist. And we also have hackathons and all sorts of events and and different really exciting things coming up so please get on our mailing list if you are interested, and reach out if you’re interested in becoming a Oryx even exploring the concept of becoming a coalition partner.

14:11 - Our establish trust programs will are threefold. They will provide small group, small grants for research educational programs and activism and community building.

14:22 - And that’s my very very brief introduction to library features and I’ll pass it over to Chris.

14:31 - Great, thanks Jenny. I think at the, at the end we’ll get more information on more on how people can can engage and get involved.

14:40 - So, Let’s go. What we want to do now is have everyone talk.

14:45 - Give a three minute or so, kind of context setting for the discussion from your perspective from your point of view from your position. What does it mean for what, what’s the value of control digital lending for libraries and consortia, I’d like to start with Kyle.

15:01 - Sure. So, let’s let’s let’s come from 10,000 feet and frame it a little more narrow first.

15:09 - First, just uniform definition control digital lending is the system by which libraries, use technology to replicate a libraries right to loan, they’re legally required books in a digital format, under controlled conditions of a controlled, is the aspect of this which is kind of interesting.

15:27 - It’s it’s technology right often the same technology that’s employed by the publishers, when they sell directly to users and libraries are good to control.

15:35 - We have an entire interlibrary loan system, which controls the circulation of books and we have for a long time, and consortium models do the same thing.

15:43 - This system I think preserves two important functions that exists in the library and publishing and social system which first, first and foremost, and this is kind of missed a single so publishers and authors continue to receive revenue from the acquisition of the works by the library right library is still buying books and loading them whether it’s in a consortia or in interlibrary or intra library, that’s part one of our mission right acquire the books.

16:09 - part two is the other part we preserve the ability for libraries to maintain their significant missions, which includes both consortium mission and and and preservation mission to provide equitable access to these materials by adapting our traditional functions of interlibrary loan to the modern era, right, enabling people to access books for general learning research and intellectual enrichment, even though they may not be nearby.

16:39 - So, there’s a there’s a, an excellent visual of this process called CDL explainer video which will will send a link out later.

16:47 - But that concept is. It’s very much part and parcel of the same work that we’re doing together as consortium as well so. So I just want to it’s not a separate discussion, this is how we’re, this is a discussion about integrating those same missions and values that CDL exemplifies, but now with more partners and isn’t that the most exciting and important part of kind of our work here together. So that’s my that’s my three minutes Chris.

17:14 - Thanks Kyle I think you think you made it in under the under the wire I’m also here. Oh, I think I shared that just to the channel as into the panelists, let me share again to the out a link to that CCL explained video that Kyle mentioned I’ll get that in just a second. But next let’s hear from Charlie from the executive director of the Boston library consortium CL as as view through a from a consortium through consortium over you Charlie, Thanks Chris and thanks Kyle for that excellent explanation.

17:44 - I think that increasingly we’re seeing a number of consortia stepping into the CPL space and that’s been really exciting to just be a part of these past few months.

17:55 - I thought it was quite important I think at the outset to sort of distinguish between two sort of highly related in parallel but distinct approaches to CBl that consortia are exploring really in this present moment, I think the first relates to the role that a consortium can be playing and guiding local implementation, and our member libraries providing that educational component and support guidance best practices consistency.

18:22 - I think that’s been really all the more important in this pandemic moment for things like Course Reserves.

18:28 - And I think then the second though and Kyle touched a little bit on this is, is the role that CBl can play and resource sharing your sort of CDL controller be alone, if you will, and for the PLC specifically we like many consortia are fundamentally resource sharing driven and CDF offers a very compelling approach to strengthen and reinforce the resource sharing missions of library consortia 50 years ago the PLC was founded on this shared commitment to promote cooperation among our member libraries and making resources more readily available, and that’s no less true now than it was back then and CBl may well be, you know, the mechanism that we pursue a scale to do something there.

19:17 - I do think that you know can social scale really presents exciting opportunities for us and also you know a number of challenges as we accelerate the lending of digital material there’s opportunities for centralized repositories of digital materials that we own and print the opportunities for centralized digitization particularly I think help with capacity constraints, and avoiding duplication of effort among members and so on.

19:48 - And I think today, a lot of the successful implementations that we’ve seen are really been limited and constrained particularly in this pandemic moment around course reserves for local patrons usually using some kind of patchwork of technology that doesn’t really scale up to them resource sharing enterprise.

20:07 - And, you know, at a fundamental level. You know I think CDL for consortia via Interlibrary Loan makes great sense in our positions us to share secure scans of print materials in a controlled way versus and alongside the returnables lending that we do.

20:27 - I guess one other thing in the social space that’s intrigued me lately and I have to say I don’t have too many thoughtful answers on it but the role of of share prints in the social studio space, or on retention particularly thinking about critical books that otherwise would not be circulating but perhaps and copyright, and then great value to the community.

20:48 - So, thank you hopefully I was under three minutes as well for us. We’re not timing it so it’s okay we have we have ample time for for the conversation will go as long as we need.

20:58 - Thanks for that Charlie and I’ll say this just as a as a data point.

21:03 - As we talk about control digital lending at the Internet Archive and RM the program that we run the open libraries program. It’s not very long after we start talking with an individual library that they immediately jumped to well what about resource sharing and what could this mean for the other libraries that I’m involved in so I think the the library community as a whole is is thinking along the lines that you’re guiding us Charlie So, so that’s good.

21:26 - Let’s move next to to Jill Hurst wall and and Jill I think in our pre conversation pre meeting conversation you are especially interested in looking at control digital ending of what it means sort of administrative Lee for a library or as it relates to collections and two budgets I wonder if you could elaborate a bit.

21:44 - Sure. Thank you. So, one of the hats I wear is board president for my local library system which a countywide system of 22 libraries.

21:56 - Some have multiple branches. And so that kind of sharing of resources is something I think about frequently.

22:03 - This past year, for all of us. We’ve been impacted by pandemic.

22:09 - And it changed. How are consortia how our library systems operate locally, and I’ll make this personal.

22:20 - All of our libraries in the county had to shut down some for weeks. Some four months because of coven 19.

22:28 - We had to shift our budgets. And so that budget that we had for collections of it might have gotten shifted to something else, maybe making changes to the library facilities may be purchasing more digital resources, maybe doing something else.

22:46 - And that sharing that we’re used to do with our collections. Slow down.

22:54 - Rather than having things circulate quickly around the system things took longer. So if I think about book that might circulate 26 times a year, you know, two weeks at a time.

23:07 - Given the seven day quarantine that book would circulate I believe about 17 times in a year. So that slowness.

23:16 - I think some people noticed. Yesterday I had a text message from a friend who said, Can the library get this book from someplace else.

23:27 - That was basically the message person was looking for a book and it couldn’t get it, it can’t they go outside the system to get this book. It’s like we’re in the pandemic.

23:37 - You know, so those things are used to flowing back and forth right now just aren’t happening.

23:43 - And so, so I see control digital lending, this lending and materials in a controlled environment. It’s really helping systems consortia in two ways. First of all, we share resources.

23:56 - we share in some way, our budget and control with digital landing can help us extend what we’re doing what we’re sharing.

24:09 - I don’t want to correlate to, you know how we spend our money by want to just say it can have a positive impact. Right, on how we’re spending, how we’re building our collections, how we’re how we’re getting resources out to our patrons.

24:26 - It makes things more widely available. And so being able to share things digitally, whether it’s within the system or outside the system is a real benefit not just for people who are, who can’t come into the library right now, which has happened over the last year, but for people whose preferred format is digital.

24:51 - And so I really see this digital landing in a controlled environment has been beneficial for systems, I think, as Cliff said in the last year.

25:03 - This has gained steam gained momentum. I know that there are systems who haven’t even thought about this yet, but I think if they consider the impact of the pandemic on their libraries, and on their budgets, they will see that control digital lending can have a positive effect for them, going forward, Chris.

25:29 - Thanks Jill. I’ll take a couple of minutes just to mention the the work that that I helped lead at the Internet Archive, and that’s the open libraries program and so at the at the archive we we’ve been doing control digital lending before it was called control digital lending. For more than 10 years now we were working we have been working with libraries in the Boston area, starting to do what was then called digitize and land is now called control, control digital lending.

25:58 - So, we have now 2 million books the Internet Archive acquires material we buy books we get materials donated from libraries that are closing waiting their collections and also donations from booksellers like better world books.

26:11 - So we have millions of books now in our physical collection people think of the Internet Archive as a digital library and that’s accurate and in addition to our digital holdings and our born digital content we also have millions of books that are sitting in our physical archive that don’t circulate. We have digitize those books, and we make them available for anyone around the world who can sign up for an Internet Archive library card to borrow that book one at a time.

26:36 - And then, that the that collection that we’ve digitize we offer to libraries to claim and to lend to your patrons as well through our control digital lending service through our open libraries program.

26:47 - Since the pandemic certainly moved a lot of people into considering control digital lending who hadn’t previously and there were also libraries that were previously in the program and we’re glad that they were when the when things started to shut down at this point. Last year, we just released a blog post that will link to last Wednesday from Milton Public Library in Ontario so Canadian library public library that joined the open libraries program in the fall of 2019, just because they wanted more digital books to lend to their patrons to offer to their patrons.

And so, when there were three branches close. They were digital they were up and running in the through the Internet Archive and so they were able to lend books to their patrons, while their physical library was closed and while in that, in that period of time, a couple of weeks to a couple of months for libraries were really trying to figure out how do we do this, how do we keep our operations going and stay safe for the public as well as for our own workers. So a lot of libraries were moving towards control digital lending at this in about a week or so, a year ago I started doing almost like two webinars a week talking about control digital lending.

28:01 - We now have more than 80 libraries that are participating in the internet archives open libraries program in one form or another. and more than 45 libraries that are contributing their collections to add into our lending count so that we have more than the one copy of the physical book that the Internet Archive has acquired and digitized, so we’ll I’ll provide a link at the end of the session to. To learn more about the open libraries program if you’re interested in, in, in, maybe getting your feet wet in the control digital lending waters.

And with that, let’s go back to, to Jenny. For some guiding thoughts around control digital lending from the library futures perspective.

28:40 - Yeah. Everyone has added so much that I think the one thing that comes up for me that I think has been mentioned. So is the reasons why digitization and why digital is important and why digital is helpful beyond you know can I get the best seller, can I get that book from the library, which wild those are super important, and digital also provides a wealth of opportunities and a new form of readership in youth, and in the print disabled and access, you know, is about individual patrons but it’s also about helping people who don’t live near a library or who, you know, might not be able to access digital materials that are provided by certain distributors, because of their location.

29:37 - And so I think it’s in as an organization that’s committed to equitable access to knowledge. We believe strongly that in addition to the sort of larger question around ownership of materials and ownership of digital materials for libraries that CDL is an incredible tool in the access toolkit.

29:59 - And also that the operative word is controlled you know I think that sometimes in in different situations, there’s this, this idea that because you’re not doing it through a distributor because it’s not licensed like it’s somehow less controlled.

30:14 - But the way in which control digital lending works, is the way that you know materials have been lent throughout time if you lend the physical copy and then you can’t lend the digital copy that’s the control aspect of it.

30:30 - So I think just the two things that I, I wanted to add to this conversation are the sort of two prongs of both Why is access important. And we’ve seen that a lot of runs schools and that’s something that library futures is really interested in is you know how, you know, what does it mean when a school has to go remote or a school has a flood or a school has, you know, a disaster. And they’ve already purchased the number of books that they needed for a class with a number of textbooks that they needed for a class and there’s no digital option for these students, and even you know if a student is print disabled and there’s no digital option, I spoke to a public library and in Boston.

31:13 - Yesterday, a public school librarian yesterday in Boston, and she said that, frankly, you know, there are 23 library school librarians 426 public schools in Boston, and that she is only able to do her work, because she has a working knowledge of copyright and still her teachers are unable to put up materials on their CMS is they’re unable to share materials, even though the print materials are inaccessible to their students.

31:44 - So there’s just no digital option for them and so many teachers have had to just change their curriculum to be public domain materials, and as we think about diversifying curricula as we think about diversifying our collections to say that, you know, the only ways in which things can be accessed digitally is either by paying exorbitant licensing fees or confusing licensing fees and not practicing, you know, what libraries do best, just sharing resources with each other and cooperating which came up multiple times in the other panelists conversations I really, I really think it’s it’s a missed opportunity for libraries and I really think that it’s going to hold back.

32:32 - The future of digital access, not only for, you know, people who want to read the new dean coast. So the example I use, but also for anybody who needs digital access for any reason, which is largely youth, and the print disabled and, you know, rural people and people who are older and, you know, might want to magnify the print or might want to search within the print there’s so many opportunities the digital provide.

33:05 - And I think that CDL is an incredible tool to help libraries enable that.

33:13 - Jenny I don’t want to put you on the spot but I, you mentioned something that that sparked a thought.

33:20 - Am I correct in remembering that library features is gathering stories from teachers and from, from parents others who were trying to describe that how difficult it was to get access to educational materials, you are correct, and we would love to hear from you. If you’re a parent or a teacher, and you’re, you want to talk about sort of the issues that you had with with digital materials or even just accessing materials more generally.

33:52 - At the start of the pandemic and going on. Great. And how can how can people give you those stories. I put my email again in the chat. Great. And we’ll also have the.

34:05 - The that emails will be listed here in our slides. I’m also seeing here we’ve dropped in the link to that control digital lending explained into the slide deck this deck will be available.

34:16 - I’m also putting out on Twitter, my hat, my, my Twitter handle is at Chris Freeland just my name.

34:24 - And so at the end of this session will have a link to the slides and to all of the calls to action that we’re making throughout our conversation today so at that.

34:32 - With that, let’s just move into open discussion and I’m going to stop the share here so that we can all be up in gallery view and just have a conversation, let me move this back to gallery view.

34:44 - And I’d like to start with Charlie. I, because we want to hear about the sort of the view from a consortium from like a consortium, sorry.

34:54 - How did this CL question blossom from within the VLC How did you have this conversation about control digital lending and really how did it sort of spread throughout the organization, or thanks Christina I love this story and, to be clear, we’re still much in the exploratory phase Although I will say we’ve done an awful lot of exploring these past few weeks and months but I think as many of you know I started by position during the pandemic. I’ve actually get to step foot in any of the team member library.

So, the universe of collaboration for the VLC has been this room.

35:25 - So, the universe of collaboration for the PLC has been this room. And I think you know our CDL exploration has really been an exercise for us and what virtual consortium collaboration can look like to move us forward.

35:42 - So, a librarian from one of our member libraries back in the fall reached out to me and asked, What would it take for the DLC to consider signing on to the position state.

35:52 - My first board meeting was coming up, I perhaps naively introduced it to my DLC board that September, and ultimately we actually decided not to sign on to it, and instead take some time to really explore the opportunities the challenges the pathways that the consortium would really have for CDs so that was kind of how our studio working group was born and there are many other consortia that are either even further along than we are with establishing similar working groups, others are just at the beginning stages.

36:28 - I initially anticipated a pretty small group, maybe six people.

36:33 - Quickly blown away by the interest across the member libraries and exploring this we ended up with a group of about 15 people from 11 of the member libraries, and four weeks after we established the group I was getting more and more emails.

36:47 - I’d love to join it love to join. Let us to what we had framed. this year is the CBl roadshow, so we took the working group, kind of on the road around the VLC various communities and engaged with I think more than 100 folks across the six week period and we still have a lot more to do.

37:06 - So, yeah, I think an exercise and virtual consortium collaboration we’ve learned a lot of course about CDL but also about how we can work together to advance you know specific priorities for the consortium, and encourage others to begin.

37:23 - Those same explorations if they’re not already on that path.

37:28 - And you’ll never know where what you know, relatively straightforward request assign a position statement, it takes you so it’s been quite the journey.

37:36 - These past six months. Were there any surprises along the way in those in those conversations Charlie anything that stands out.

37:46 - That’s a great question and I feel like I could talk for a whole hour about it but I think the advantage of us, engaging with so many of the other communities we worked really hard to have a group that was representative of the different types of libraries within the VLC Consortium, and the types of roles from board members to us to staff, and so on.

38:09 - I think Special Collections and Archives presented something of real interest to us, of course that often bypasses sort of the copyright constraints but presents a whole a whole range of others.

38:23 - So it’s broadened our sort of resource sharing ambition still further and, you know, how can we get the collections of the PLC member libraries into the hands of patrons, maybe using CDL mechanisms, but maybe using other things as well, so it’s been very productive in the in the resource sharing sphere.

38:44 - That’s great. I’m curious Kyle, where did. Where did did consortia fit it all in the original thinking that that you and Dave Hanson and others did in describing control digital lending.

38:59 - Yes. So, although the, you know, we wrote the paper prior to the pandemic to, so the white paper on control digital ethnic was written prior to fantastic but always on our mind was the advantages that I think clearly exist for coast social CL and and I didn’t get to write and paper I’m going to talk about it that, first of all, like, like huge shout out to the Western Public Library who I in researching this.

39:28 - A year ago invented the idea of conceptual Interlibrary Loan apparently, or at least actually put it into action.

39:36 - In the early in the late 19th century but anyway, this this concept of living union bliss and and and you know I don’t know if I’m on the right call for talking about union lists.

39:48 - But the idea like here’s what we got in one giant place. And then, you know, making a living being like here’s what we got.

39:55 - Physically, so the concept which tickles my fancy was, we’re already doing. Many of us are already doing off site consortiums storage or something along those where we’re partnering to put stuff off site and that’s like critical lesson one and control digital lending right is that that the physical is no longer available to be checked out right you’re, you’re duplicating you’re saying here’s the physical want to hide that away and by the way I had that always come in many forms, right, putting in a salt mine off site storage grabbing it off the shelves, hiding it in the circulation office, or even I have talked to legal theory about what if we digitize the book and then destroyed the book right and that would be no market harm ever and we just have have the digital copy now I’m not talking about book burning here.

40:37 - But, legally, this is kind of fascinating to me because imagine the capacity of a shared physical storage site, run by a very large consortia which we have plenty of them, that could serve as the CDO I ll warehouse right all of these books in here potentially would meet certain legal criteria for CDO, and then draw upon the scope and the breath and this would lead me to something really important. Maybe we shouldn’t be D duplicating our collections.

41:08 - don’t need to keep those waiting takes on a whole new interesting concept. When you apply CDL like we have 16 copies in this warehouse yes it takes up space but now we can loan 16 copies instead of weeding that down to two or three, because we thought so. so there’s there’s a shift there. And, and just to recall again I’m here for the legal lens I’m pretty sure you know during the years preceding the copyright law revision in 1976 publishers lobby pretty hard for strongly worded anti ILO clauses that would affect consortium Interlibrary Loan arrangements thankfully libraries, certain that such language would prevent normal customary Interlibrary Loan arrangements lobbied hard for additional language.

41:51 - So I think Interlibrary Loan consortia inside the bottle and Bobby sleek consortia don’t just exist for Interlibrary Loan there’s many reasons, but it’s an executive, I think it’s an excellent example of mission based collective action kind of what Jenny was talking about that serves the users prevents the undermining of the library and archive mission together or attempting to counter the enormous imbalance of power and market share that the publishers have right so consortium groups that get together exert their Interlibrary Loan rights protect the incredible fiscal and legal value, we have in sharing our collections right.

And those can be taken up from us via licensing contract embargo so this gives that back, libraries, but I think gives us back in a group setting. I think that’s those are my thoughts at least initially.

42:39 - You know you mentioned interlibrary loan and Interlibrary Loan has come up several times now already on the call and I wonder, let’s let’s explore interlibrary loan, a little bit so from your point of view, Kyle where does.

42:54 - Where does Interlibrary Loan fit with control digital ending.

42:57 - So, so, so they’re they’re they’re both special superpowers that libraries get to exert. So, interlibrary loan is covered under section one of the Copyright Act, I can’t believe I get to say that out loud at a meeting.

43:11 - But I love section one. And that’s the idea that yes, there, there, there is no necessary risk in books, being shared amongst libraries themselves as long as it’s not doing to replace the subscription or something like that doing it, it’s such a capacity that replaces the subscription but obviously we’ve built upon that over the decades we have large consortia that loan amongst themselves, both nationally and internationally.

43:35 - That’s that section on OECDL has a flavor of a very big flavor I would say a fair use as well and with the nice part about these riding together, is that if it doesn’t fit your Interlibrary Loan component, you might be able to use it under fair use courts have have intensified this in the Authors Guild. First half the trust in Google Books taste libraries get to do both. So, what, what we’re seeing here is, oh if the friction of physical loaning waiting our turn for the library to return the book is the problem right I have to physically go to the desk, and as Charlie mentioned reserves, the life of Breath of CBl was in reserves and the least initially, but think about for Interlibrary Loan set up having a week for two weeks for the thing to arrive at your doorstep, you would be instantaneous via CBl that idea is that copyright does not protect that friction that like I gotta wait time.

So, it serves a purpose of maybe increasing the effectiveness of interlibrary loan.

44:36 - But that’s, I mean that’s my opinion. And that’s, I think, how can interplay I think, well, and so do I do I have it right in thinking that really CBl and Interlibrary Loan are distinct library practices that, that, that have kind of gotten conflated a little bit in conversations but really they are, they are distinct and different. I think they can, yeah I think they have distinct underpinnings again, these lenses are putting on everything underpinnings of law and policy, but at the same time I think they enhance each other.

45:15 - Conceptually, these are all books we have purchased and that we are loaning using technology in some way, the control of interlibrary loan is potentially the physical learning of a whole book, but I allows been scanning and sending stuff for decades.

45:31 - Jill and I talked about this all the time we’re like this is not new.

45:34 - Right digital access to materials is as old as the 1976 x.

45:40 - So, so again I think they enhance each other that’s that’s where I think I’m coming from.

45:44 - Yeah, full disclosure, I worked in Interlibrary Loan when I was an undergraduate in my, in my library and so and this was way back in the last century.

45:53 - So we weren’t, we were photocopying and faxing materials but I spent an entire summers, like right there at the photocopier photocopying articles and chapters and making those available so I mean that’s it the existing library practice it’s just sort of moving on, or probably wrapping the book with a strap fine What consortium that came from. That’s exactly right and maybe dl is the strap Chris it’s the digital strap on interlibrary loan.

46:22 - I guess I don’t know what the what the analog then or the next step is to the right bag that it had to go in to make sure it got to the right place the green bag went north.

46:31 - And anyway, having flashbacks to to the late 90s mid 90s Actually, I’m looking at the time, I do want to encourage folks if you have questions that you’d like any of us to answer please do you know add them in chat or use the the q amp a feature will continue with the conversation. Looking at the time I would like to jump forward just a little bit and and ask. Jenny and Jill to to reflect on to let’s say you’ve, you’ve, you’ve approached control digital lending you’ve had your conversations internally, but then how can libraries and consortium bring CL up within their governance structures you know like what might your board members want to know, maybe start with Jill, or so.

47:15 - As for President. This is a interesting thing for me to think about.

47:19 - Right. So how does the staff, the director of the system, bring things to the board.

47:27 - And so I think a few things. First of all, in, at least in New York State.

47:35 - Most library boards most consortium boards, perhaps don’t have library background for system boards in New York State is not a requirement.

47:46 - So, I do have a library. So you need to think about how to introduce this topic.

47:58 - And I think we tend to want to rush forward with a new idea.

48:06 - I have a great idea, let me run into that meeting presented to them, they’re going to say yes, I’ll run back out and I can implement.

48:13 - But that’s not going to work because your library board doesn’t understand how libraries operate, they hear the terms, they not politely, perhaps, but they don’t understand all the nuances of what that, all that stuff going so they know interlibrary loan for example, they know collection sharing, but they don’t know the details.

48:34 - And so I would advocate that you work with your, your staff to bring this topic to the board, a little bit slowly introduce them to what the practices are now.

48:50 - This is what we do this is how it happens. Maybe a show and tell me whatever.

48:56 - Then, you know, and again, this may happen over multiple meetings, because they have to understand, talk about with, with the friction is I like that word, where the friction is in the process, or what the benefit would be to doing something differently.

49:14 - You know, here’s an opportunity here’s what we’re missing.

49:17 - And then introduce this idea of digital London and talk about how you’re already landing things digitally.

49:28 - So right it’s not a new concept. So bring it in, you know, this is what we’re already doing.

49:34 - Here are some places where we can improve where things are getting stuck in the system where things aren’t moving so quickly, you know, here’s a place now we can do something called controlled until Monday, and then talk to them about that.

49:49 - You’re going to have to get them comfortable with this. This is why it might be multiple meetings.

49:55 - You got to be able to answer questions, you might want to bring in someone else into the conversation maybe point to another system that’s already doing this, maybe have someone else come and speak, use a CD or explain or whatever it is, but I know from only my board but watching other groups, you know, attack something new that sometimes that board does not move as quickly that group does not move as quickly as we all hope, and our downfall as library staff people as information people, broadly speaking, is that we tend to assume that everyone already understands it.

50:34 - And they don’t. And so you have to get them to understand and then bring them along in a conversation.

50:42 - Yeah, it’s a it’s a conversation right not a, not a single discussion I think that’s what Charlie was alluding to at the at the stop at the top, Jenny I’m curious if you have additional thoughts or are there resources the library features has the concern of helping some of these conversations. Yeah, I mean I think Jill covered it perfectly, not much more to add. I think the only thing I would maybe add is to, to understand that there is a sort of a perception maybe a risk of taking the risks and another thing about librarians I sometimes think that as a profession, we may be let the perfect be the enemy of the good or the done or the decision.

51:29 - And so I think it’s really important that we, you know, advocate for practices that we think are going to move our libraries and move our profession and move services to our patrons forward.

51:43 - And for us it, I think that part of that is is CBl.

51:48 - And so we’re working on resources right now. you will be surprised when we have resources and blog posts, Jill just wrote in an excellent blog post about equitable access we have another blog post coming out about sort of the hit the history of the Macmillan boycott and why it happened and you know how can librarians be better advocates within their own institutions for combating what is unfair pricing or embargo behavior.

52:19 - And so if that directly answering your question Chris I’m sorry, but we do have resources coming out within the next few months that will cover some many of these issues that Jill presented so beautifully.

52:33 - But, um, that’s great, thanks Jenny, I know Kyle you’ve been involved in a lot of studio groups and so if there are places where other people are interested in in learning more sort of, you know, getting more information to take into those board conversations where, where should people go.

52:51 - Yes. And I varied many hats. So there is, there is the very important group control digital lending implementations CDLI, which has a Google sites for their homepage and I can share that link in a moment.

53:06 - That is a monthly forum in which our community gets together, and talks about what we’re doing to implement control digital lending literally the title of the organization.

53:17 - And this has been fantastic. I did not create this, but I joined wholeheartedly because you want to know about frontline implementation, and the scope and the breadth of what our peers are doing to make CDL or whatever they rename it into CDL work at their library systems, this is the place to go.

53:37 - Also, I co founded a group that’s at CDL project. org called Cirque, which stands for controlled digital lending implementation resource consortia circuit spells that Cirque took us a long time to come up with that.

53:54 - And CBl project basically we’re trying to track all the different technology. We have three that we’ve graded that need to be released at something but what we did was create a uniform system of grading or going through this is what these systems provide because as you know, there’s kind of the front end of CDs, I really like this, and then there’s the back end Oh, how do I implement this and make sure that I’m lowering risk for my library so those are those are two ways to kind of stay on board.

54:23 - And by the way, I think this is the best part of this is, it’s, it’s grassroots right this is not a top down structure, no one owns CBl, there’s no one ring to rule at all for CBl to survive groups like consortia groups like these, these, these CBl related groups get together and talk about it that’s the most powerful aspect of this, which I think is helpful.

54:46 - Yeah I. Thanks for that Kyle, you know I like to mention with the CDI group like you. The, the Internet Archive we learned about the those conversations that were happening and we’re like knocking on the door like hey, how can we, how can we be part of it and so like as a demonstration of how not at the center of those conversations are, we had to ask to join them. So it’s like it is a community that is happening the end, and that’s beautiful like we love seeing that think there’s there’s strength in numbers I think there’s there’s strength in numbers as we as we start to wind down here.

Looking at our time. I wanted to offer or ask a question for both Charlie and Jill maybe to think about is now the right time to consider control digital lending like there’s a lot that’s happening and library budgets are in flux and is now the right time, but maybe start with Charlie, what are your thoughts.

55:34 - I think, simply Yes It absolutely is the right time to be having these conversations.

55:41 - You know, I think the pandemic has lifted this up, you know, now more than more than ever, about the opportunities that are available to us through digital lending.

55:51 - I think a challenge that we’re sort of waiting on is around sort of maturity of sort of technological infrastructure and things like that. To do this kind of work at scale, but no I have confidence that it’s coming and if you’re not ready right now today, then it will be there when you are.

56:09 - I do want to plug one other group, largely focused in the consortium space.

56:16 - Really very much sort of inspired and ignited by the CDI group that’s been very focused largely on local implementation, was the emergence of a community of practice for consortia addressing many of these questions sort of thinking about issues relative to consortium adoption with the goal of making CDL a central component of resource sharing so you don’t have a website or not quite as official or unofficial at some of these groups, maybe but if you’re interested in joining that that community.

56:48 - We welcome Additional Voices from other consortium it’s been a very productive group for us. In recent months. Currently, can I ask you, I’ve been calling that the consortium of commercial group the supergroup.

57:01 - There is a forum like a super conceptual CTO group has their name, we struggle with acronyms.

57:08 - So way back was was cars the consortium approaches to resource sharing that has now evolved into consortium approaches to CBl.

57:19 - So, that doesn’t really roll off the tongue so I welcome any, any visionary ideas of what to call it. I’m just going to continue to call it the consortium supergroup then.

57:28 - Perfect. Super supergroup sounds good. How about you, Jill.

57:35 - So, I agree that now is a great time to be thinking about it.

57:41 - Depending on your staffing depending on your budget depending on the other things you’re focusing on this may not be the right time to jump in. So if you’re a consortia your system.

57:53 - Your whatever habits budget slashed had staffer load had staff.

58:02 - Let go. During the pandemic. You may have other things that you need to be thinking about.

58:08 - And so, and, including staff safety patrons safety community center.

58:14 - So, focus on those things, maybe put a little note in the back of your head about Cpl. And what control digital and and can do for you start to compile some information, maybe discuss it informally with your staff, begin to think about how you can bring your board on on board with it.

58:36 - But for some people this is not quite the right time, it really depends on what’s happening internally with you. And that’s okay, as, as Charlie and Kyle will attest to, it will still be here when you’re ready, and that will be more mature.

58:52 - Right, more people to follow in this process.

58:56 - So it’s a hyper local decision. As with as with almost all things in libraries. Looking at our time we just have a couple of minutes left so I do want to offer you know any other questions from the audience please do send them through chat or through the q amp a.

59:12 - But I would like to put up as we’re waiting for any additional questions I want to put up a final slide here of how you can take action. So if you’ve been inspired if you if you want to learn more from our session today again as I, as I mentioned, I will be having this.

59:28 - I’ll be putting these links up through my Twitter feed, at Chris Freeland, but the things that we want, you know to leave you with is if you’re interested in doing more join the library futures coalition.

59:40 - We’d also love to have that engagement through the CD Li and throughout the as Charlie mentioned the consortium approaches group or the super group.

59:50 - And then I mentioned at the top, I’ll be doing a webinar at the end of the month, just a couple of weeks.

59:57 - If you’re interested in learning more about the open libraries program and how the internet archives implementation of control digital lending works.

60:06 - I am not seeing any additional questions, so maybe in our in our remaining minute, I would go back to Charlie.

60:15 - This is about consortia, what’s the what’s the what’s the word you want to leave us with what’s the view from of CDs from the, from a consortium.

60:27 - Wow, that’s a tough one. Um. Oh, goodness, I let me help, what what what’s, what’s inspiring you about control digital lending Where Where are you going, in your thinking and your conversations.

60:50 - I have a word but I think really it’s around, you know reimagining resource sharing, which is, you know, the future of life is to be able to democratize access to information for our patrons This is really exciting.

61:05 - I’ll think of a word for next time and have Jill.

61:10 - So, Charlie sparked something. You may in your consortia be thinking about how you’ve been sharing materials in the past, and noting how things have gotten stuck in the last year or what isn’t working, as you think now start to think very creatively about what sharing with in the future.

61:32 - And then look at this as one of those tools one of those options that you might pursue.

61:39 - I would say don’t just take a controlled digital run as control digital lending like a thing we want to do, but maybe take this moment to think about lending.

61:50 - In total, and then, you know, have that drive you forward and drive forward you’re thinking about control digital.

61:58 - Thanks for that. Well, looking at the time we’re just a minute past, I want to thank everyone for your time and attention and, and I’ll pass it back over to Diane.

62:07 - Thank you. Thanks so much, Chris and thank you to all of our wonderful panelists, it was a fascinating conversation, and to our attendees, we really appreciate you coming and spending some time with us here at CNI.

62:20 - I’m going to turn off the recording but if you want to stay back and have a chat with our panelists, make a comment ask a question, please I invite you to do so. .