The library tech skeptic at work: Good Kindle advice for Amazon from Walt Crawford, despite his past misses

Behold! A few nice words about the Kindle have come from none other than Walt Crawford, a well-known library automation guru and tech skeptic—even if they show up with major conditions.

I’ll get to Walt’s somewhat pro-Kindle remarks and K-related advice in time. His very qualified praise is blog-worthy since he has just about made a career of skepticism toward futuristic library tech. For now, here’s a little context for you to take in, while the suspense builds about the exact Crawford quote.

My biggest disappointment with Walt-style commentary is that it fixates too much on the limits of the technology of the day rather than realistically looking ahead for the long run. Consider Future Libraries, a 1995 book that Walt coauthored with Michael Gorman. FL mentioned the “enormous technological difficulties in creating affordable, bright LCD displays much larger than 11 inches.” It conceded that this might change, but the general tone here and elsewhere was too often anti-tech. Today we have not just econo-LCDs and the OLPC’s display breakthrough, but also E Ink and other forms of e-paper. Display technology will get much better in the future even if we can’t predict exactly when.

Rx: More hands-on—but even without it, Walt can be right at times

Another issue is that Walt often refuses to check out e-book gadgets and software, even after they are no longer so hard to catch up with for a hands-on. For example, to spill the beans on one of Walt’s all-important qualification of his Kindle praise, he noted he has yet to try a K machine. How about it, Walt? Just why not? Can’t you catch up with a K-owning friend? I won’t buy the argument that you’ll “stipulate that it might be ‘ideal enough’ for me.” What about positives and negatives that you might be the first to discern?

Still, I think Walt Crawford at times can be spot on. For example, I agree with certain of his warning about technohype, including the Kindle-related variety.

Walt’s wise advice for Amazon

In a just-published summary of librarians’ writings about the Kindle, moreover, combined with his own opinions, Walt serves up some excellent recommendations or implied recs for Amazon and brethren. The e-book market might indeed grow into the multi billions, “at least 10 and possibly 100 times the size” of the current one, if publishers and retailers listen to him.

His recommendations and implied ones, appearing in the April 2008 Cites and Insights, certainly overlap closely with my own thinking:

• Use of open standards, which, though far from a smashing success so far within e-bookdom, just may be about to take off as I see it. In this vein, I’m glad that Walt mentions ePUB, the IDPF standard and its adoption challenges, but I hope he’ll grasp that librarians are partly to blame for the format not succeeding as quickly as boosters hoped. Librarians need to tell vendors: “ePUB or else.” ePUB shouldn’t be the only major format choice right now—it still has a way go—but as usual, librarians have been too willing to let tech companies boss ’em around. With library schools playing up technology more than before, maybe even too much in some cases, let’s hope this changes. Same in regard to patron-hostile DRM. Libraries can’t banish it overnight, especially with the expiration-based model in use, but they really should be investigating alternatives and pressuring vendors to experiment.
• Subscription plans, through which you could get a free Kindle II, rather than shelling out $250 or whatever, if you made “a two-year commitment to buy at least two books a month.” As I see it, this Walt-blessed approach would be a far better way for Amazon to encourage customer loyalty than the silly games it now plays with formats, such as the creation of a speak Kindle dialect to try to prevent K fans from enjoying their existing Mobipocket books. More than a few smart people have pointed out that Baen hasn’t fared too badly with its subscription option; and that’s without a card to play like the Kindle.
• Cultivation of the textbook market if the publishers and others will allow this. Great idea, Walt, if that’s what you’re in fact driving at! Let’s just hope that Kindle II will have a larger-screen option, since the current six-inch display is rather small. Not to mention the fact that the screen lacks the color that schoolchildren and the device could be more rugged. But long term, yes, this is a sensible goal. I hope that Walt will also see the potential of improved tablets and other gizmos for the elderly.

Where I’d especially agree with Walt: I’d fervently side with his belief in the continued usefulness of narrative, including the kind with fixed text. Must everything be hyperlinked, dynamic and interactive? Here’s to a variety of approaches! Meanwhile, despite the hype, Kindle-style devices could  help traditional novels and other long narratives. Refined, moreover, they could draw far large an audience than Walt thinks, even if I see cellphones and the like as counting, too, in the long run.

Walt and his super-qualified Kindle praise–a few more details, so the suspense ends: Meanwhile it’s great to read that Walt just might enjoy the Kindle: “Since I haven’t used a Kindle, I’m willing to stipulate that it might be ‘ideal enough’ for me. If I had occasion to use it, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I became immersed in the text of good books as readily as I do with a print book. (Frankly, I’d be surprised if I didn’t.) Much as I love elegant typography, I rarely worry about its lack in mass-market paperbacks if the content makes up for it. I suspect I’d get along just fine with whatever Kindle offered.” Looks as if the idea of reading off a screen is no longer so crazy. Good on Walt for some candor and flexibility here. Now, Walt, please try to catch up with an actual Kindle and see if you don’t agree with me that the Kindle is a nice start but the display could use much more contrast between the text and the background. And of course people are right about the hair-trigger on the Kindle’s page-turning controls.

Earlier in the dispatch from Walt: “I continue not to have a personal opinion on Kindle. Nor should I have: I’m not the intended market. I don’t travel often enough. I borrow most of the books I read. I’m happy with print books. I don’t believe Amazon wants to wean me away from print books, for that matter.” Wait. What about the paragraph where I quote Walt above—the “if I had occasion to use it” stuff? Ifs or no ifs, isn’t that an opinion?

And more about Walt and LCDs: From Future Libraries: “It appears that non-CRT displays are not the answer, at least not those those based on any known technology. Affordable liquid displays (LCDs) resolve at no more than 80 dots per inch, and there are enormous technical difficulties in creating affordable, bright LCDs much larger than 11 inches. Those who imagine a world in which lengthy texts can only be read from the screen tend to resort to hand-waving when confronted with the resolution factor, rarely referring to any real-world devices that solve the problem. Some have even made the baseless assumption that computer displays offer resolution equivalent to paper books.” Do you see what was happening back in the ’90s? Walt was focusing on the technology available at the time he was writing a book on libraries’ future. Speaking of LCDs, perhaps Walt can try not just E Ink machines but also the HP Mini laptop; its display isn’t perfect but is a long way from 1995 technology. He might also check out an example of the DPIs that laptop LCDs offered in 2004, from Daily Habit—along with tips on reducing the problem with excessive brightness.

The big advantage of E that Walt doesn’t appreciate sufficiently: He writes in his roundup: “There’s room for both” E and P.” Yes! But then he adds: “For most of us—who don’t travel a lot, who usually read one book at a time, especially who get most of our books from libraries—ebooks continue to be a solution in search of a problem. Technological perfection isn’t the issue. Preference is.” But, Walt, what about the preferences of schoolchildren and others for a wide variety of quickly obtainable books matching their needs and interests? E is so much more efficient, especially for library-short rural areas and cash-strapped people in urban ghettos, and in the future, as noted, it could be a boon for elderly American with limited mobility. Not to mention developing countries without decent library infrastructures for p-books. Perhaps “preferences” and needs are the same in many cases. Sure you don’t want to reconsider those statements, Walt?

No infallibility at this end, either—and a big reason why I became a standards booster: I can recall thinking in the mid-1980s that the WordStar word-processing format would go on and on. It didn’t, and that’s one reason why I believe that the Tower of eBabel is poison for e-books. Nonproprietary standards have the best chances of enduring. I’d like to see Walt crack the whip to get fellow librarians worked up about the very real downsides of e-books as they exist now—and the about use of standards as a partial solution. He loves the idea of books as a permanent medium, and so do I.

Credential Department: Walt lacks a library degree despite his impressive credentials within librarydom (he’s currently Director/Managing Editor of the PALINET leadership network), nor do I have one. I have been writing about e-books and e-libraries, however, since the 1990s.

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