Nancy Allmang on iPods Building a program for a research library

esearch libraries, with their in-depth col- management skills “on the go” since 2004. Rlections that support research activities, Members of our Research Library Advisory have long collected print books and journals, Board (which represents work units across and, in recent years, e-books and e-journals. NIST, such as physics, chemistry, materials E-books and e-journals enable researchers to science, electronics, and electrical engineer- locate and obtain information quickly and re- ing) had told library managers that having motely at any time of the day or night; they have access to portable sound recordings of leader- become especially popular over the past decade. ship and management books would expand On the other hand, audiobooks have not played their available time for developing these a very important role in research libraries. profi ciencies. While they were motivated to In July 2007, the Research Library at the extend their knowledge in these areas, and National Institute of Standards and Technolo- at times had job requirements to do so, they gy (NIST) instituted an Audiobooks-on-iPods1 were greatly pressed for time with research program using leadership and management and other responsibilities. audiobooks. NIST researchers enthusiastically embraced the program from its very fi rst day. Initial investigations In its initial nine months, researchers checked At fi rst our task seemed simple. We would out audiobooks six times more frequently locate a vendor with a broad selection of than new print books. downloadable leadership and management audiobooks and would purchase or subscribe Audiobooks to them. Our integrated library system (ILS) Audiobooks—digital sound recordings of books administrator and catalogers would identify read aloud—have become widely used over the best ways to make the audiobooks avail- the past few years. Their typical play time is able for customers to fi nd and download to between eight and fi fteen hours. While listeners their personal media devices. Our customers can enjoy audiobooks on a personal computer, would then “multitask” or listen to the leader- they generally listen to them on portable media ship and management books while riding the players while they do other things. As with their train, watching a soccer practice, or doing precursors, Books on Tape, audiobooks are something else. Keeping road, laboratory, and particularly suited to content intended to be other types of safety in mind, of course. read from beginning to end. Since this does not As we explored vendors of download- include textbooks or technical books, many re- able audiobooks, however, we found only search libraries have yet to include audiobooks in their collections. Nancy Allmang is reference librarian and laboratory liaison at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Research Library, e-mail: nancy. Program impetus [email protected] We had wanted to offer downloadable audio- This article is authored by an employee of the Govern- books to permit staff members to build their ment and is in the public domain.

March 2009 173 C&RL a few. There were basically only three major of a struggle over download formats in both suppliers of audiobooks on management the massive music industry and the smaller, topics. More importantly, those suppliers but increasing, sector.5 offered their audiobooks in different fi le for- The issue of audiobook copyright protec- mats: two offered them in a Windows-based tion is complex. Copyright protection methods copyright-protected fi le format, and a third in seem to benefi t some developers at least as a protected fi le format compatible with Apple much as copyright holders.6 Drastic changes iPods. Hardware and software incompatibili- have taken place over the past year among ties abounded. In November 2008, one major major labels in the music and entertainment supplier announced it had added support industry (Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, of iPod and other Mac devices to its already Universal Music Group, EMI Music). Each of existing Windows-formatted collection.2 How- the companies has now abandoned altogether ever, a search of its “business” category (as the use of DRM for music downloads, appar- this article goes to print) retrieved only three ently to allow consumers to have the option audiobooks with two of the three focused on to play downloads on the portable media personal fi nance rather than on leadership players of their choice.7 It is hoped that one and management. day a similar fl exibility of format may extend We knew that the iPod brand seemed to to the audiobook arena. have an intangible “coolness factor.” Also, Of note, in January 2008 Amazon an- iPods had the greatest market share of all per- nounced a decision to purchase Audible.com, sonal audio players.3 But further investigation the huge audiobook company that sells au- showed that apart from those of the supplier diobooks in an iPod format. It is possible that that to date provided only three business changes may lie ahead in this format war.8 audiobooks, iPod-downloadable audiobook At any rate, due to the ongoing digital rights fi les were not specifi cally made to be inte- format battle at this time, 30 million or so iPod grated with library software or checked out owners are unable to download audiobooks for specifi c time periods. They were generally from library Web sites, where vendors supply purchased and downloaded by individuals for the fi les in protected .wma format.9 So while personal use, although libraries were certainly users love iPods and the iTunes Music Store, free to purchase them and develop their own with its simple means of downloading and tracking and circulation workarounds.4 transferring audio content to their players, if Additionally, other library-friendly audio- they wish to listen to audiobooks they must books that did have such desirable library purchase their own. features as expiration at conclusion of check- out period were not playable on iPods. We One library’s answer decided to wait to see if technologies might Unfortunately, the digital rights management evolve so we could offer downloadable audio- scenario did not progress much over the two books for iPods that our ILS could manage. years following our investigation. By July 2007, our library decided to make its own way Copyright protection or digital rights around the format fi asco: we launched a small management pilot program in which we circulated iPod The audiobook digital copyright protection hardware, beginning with two fi fth generation, methods we found during our explorations 30 gigabyte video iPods we had purchased three years ago, and which are still in use a year earlier for library staff exploration of today, are: digital rights management (DRM), podcasting as a marketing tool. Each iPod used with Windows Media Audio (.wma) au- had a 2.5 inch display screen at the top, with diobook fi les; and FairPlay, used with Apple a selection and volume wheel below. We had Advanced Audio Coding (.aac) audiobook initially chosen iPods because, at the time of fi les. These protection methods are at the root purchase, 79 percent of all purchased portable

C&RL News March 2009 174 media players were iPods.10 In addition, we checkout period from four weeks to two to wanted to explore the video and audio capa- make the iPods available to customers on the bilities of media players. “holds” lists sooner. We later rolled checkout We sought the guidance of a NIST leader- back to four weeks when customers told us ship program coordinator in selecting leader- that two weeks did not give them enough ship and management audiobooks for our time to listen to all the books on each iPod. program. Together we identifi ed 12 audiobook We were surprised; we had expected that each titles in the area of leadership and manage- customer would listen to perhaps one or two ment and purchased them. We loaded six of the audiobooks per checkout. A short while audiobooks on each iPod, entered their meta- into the program, also based on customer data in our online catalog, and ordered wall feedback, we created instruction sheets with chargers so customers would not need to sync listings of audiobook titles to distribute with the iPods to computers to charge them (the each iPod, and ordered cases to protect them default way to charge an iPod is by means of from rain. a USB cable hooked to a computer; however, Recently, we also added one-hour videos of digital fi les may easily be transferred at the scientifi c in-house seminars to all of the iPods, same time, often automatically). By lending and keep one iPod in our reference collection the iPods with wall chargers, we discouraged strictly for those monthly seminars. This means customers from transferring materials between the seminars will always be available for im- their computers and the iPods when charg- mediate viewing in the library. ing them. At the same time, we ordered 40 sets of inexpensive earphones that customers The future could keep. So what’s next for our audiobooks program? In addition to loading the iPods with au- The future will depend upon developments diobooks, we also loaded them with audio in this evolving industry. podcasts of lectures from the NIST Physics According to a 2007 Audio Publishers As- Lab and free science-related video podcasts sociation survey,11 audiobook sales were up from the Discovery Channel and National by 6 percent in 2006 over 2005. The majority Geographic. We used free iTunes software of these purchases were in the form of com- to download these podcasts and to transfer pact disks (77 percent, up from 74 percent them to the iPods. We wanted to give custom- in 2005). But downloadable audiobook sales ers an opportunity to experience these new had increased by a greater proportion, from technologies. 9 percent to16 percent. We advertised the two new circulating iP- As more of our customers seek to multi- ods, and they were checked out immediately. task, we’ll expect an increase in requests for Within two months each had a six-month wait- downloadable audiobooks, specifically in ing list and circulation staff were consistently subject areas that lend themselves to a cover- contacting customers to let them know when to-cover listening format, such as leadership their requested iPods were ready. and management. We may consider offering We have twice expanded the popular additional content, such as science histories program and have purchased more iPods and or biographies. audiobooks. The recent decision by Amazon—maker of There are now eight circulating iPods, each the Kindle e-book reader—to purchase Audi- of which holds between four and six audio- ble, the large audiobook company that makes books. Incredibly, during the fi rst nine months use of the iPod digital rights management of the program, customers checked out more method, FairPlay, may bring about signifi cant than 250 audiobooks. changes. Analyst Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter We used customer input to refi ne our Research recently speculated in the procedures. At one point we shortened the Times, “Can Amazon convince book publish-

March 2009 175 C&RL News ers to do what music labels have done and 5. H. Bray, “Library audiobooks now get rid of digital rights management on these just a few mouse clicks away,” Boston fi les to make them play across the board?”12 Globe December 30, 2005, www.boston. Or might there be some interesting sort of com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/30 marriage of the downloadable digital written /library_audiobooks_now_just_a_few and spoken word? Regardless, developments _mouse_clicks_away (accessed February here will surely be interesting to watch. 17, 2009). Our research library continues to monitor 6. A. L. Penenberg, “Digital rights mis- the state of affairs in DRM and audiobooks. For management,” Slate, November 14, 2005, the time being, we will continue to lend iPods, www.slate.com/id/2130300 (accessed Feb- as this is the simplest option we have found to ruary 17, 2009). date for our customers to keep up with their 7. D. Kravets, “Death of DRM could weak- management readings in a format that permits en iTunes, boost iPod,” Wired, January 4, multitasking in their busy lives. Changes may 2008, www.wired.com/entertainment/music be coming, but, for the foreseeable future, our /news/2008/01/rip_drm (accessed February relatively low-budget program fi lls the bill, and 17, 2009). our customers are happy. 8. N. Oder, “Amazon Buys Audible; will audiobooks be Kindled?” Library Journal, Notes February 1, 2008, www.libraryjournal.com 1. The identifi cation of any commercial /article/CA6528037.html (accessed Febru- product or trade name does not imply en- ary 17, 2009). dorsement or recommendation by the National 9. Bray. Institute of Standards and Technology. 10. D. Jacobs, “Apple’s iPod contin- 2. OverDrive, “Mac software intro- ues to gain market share,” International duced for audiobook downloads from Business Times, October 4, 2006, www. public libraries,” (news release) November ibtimes.com/articles/20061004/apple-ipod 19, 2008, www.overdrive.com/aboutus -market-share.htm (accessed February 17, /getArticle.aspx?newsArticleID=20081119 (ac- 2009). cessed February 17, 2009). 11. Audio Publishers Association, 3. P. Elmer-De Witt, Apple 2.0, For- “Americans are tuning in to audio: Audio- tune, apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com book sales on the rise nationally,” (news /2008/01/29/beyond-the-incredible-shrinking release) August 24, 2007, www.audiopub. -ipod-market (accessed February 17, 2009). org/PDFs/2007SalesSurveyrelease.pdf (ac- 4. T. Peters et al., “Overview of digital audio,” cessed February 17, 2009). Computers in Libraries 25(7): 6–8, 61–64. 12. Oder.

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