About 10 days ago the library world had a bit of a blow-up with the announcement that Harper Collins was going to limit the number of circulations (to 26) for ebook titles a library purchases as a part of their OverDrive collection. The Twitter hashtag for conversations related to the topic quickly became #hcod (for Harper Collins Overdrive).
Ever since the news of HCOD broke, I’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about it partly in terms of whether or not the Harper Collins move was good or bad, but really I’ve been asking myself what does the HCOD announcement say about the big picture future of libraries, teens, and service to the age group? I’d say that’s the most important question here. While it’s important to know about the change in policies related to Harper Collins, Even more important is going beyond one publisher and one vendor and getting right to the heart of the matter, what is the future of libraries within a digital content world?
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