Tauranga libraries to offer e-book downloads

Tauranga library users will soon be able to download e-books off the library's website in a year-long trial of an exciting new service.
The $10,000 set-up cost is coming out of the library's existing budgets and will be fully user-pays once it's up and running.
It means that people who own e-readers, an electronic slab similar in shape to a book, will be able to download books for $1 - a saving of about $16 if they bought the e-book themselves.
The introduction of the new service met resistance yesterday from some councillors although it did not translate into a move to block the library from entering the e-book marketplace.
Library Services manager Jill Best said because the library would charge per download, it was restricted to one supplier and not OverDrive - the supplier other New Zealand libraries were using because most libraries were not charging members per download.
Cr Rick Curach, who for years has advocated that the future of libraries lay with the emerging technologies, said he had urged the Government to introduce a national system of e-book lending to maximise the "efficient allocation of resources".
He said that in overseas countries, libraries had responded to this technology by offering e-book borrowing via an international proprietary book-lending provider called OverDrive. Cr Curach was concerned about the duplication that would occur if every local library issued e-books.
His proposal would see the national service funded by councils, with the costs more than offset by savings gained from the reduction in the purchase of hard-copy books, along with all their associated handling and cataloguing costs.
Mrs Best said there would be savings in space, time and money and the deal she had negotiated seemed like a pretty good deal to her. At $1 per download, it would be cheaper than borrowing the latest high-demand print books.
Council city services manager Ian McDonald said it was a very good opportunity to create efficiencies in the library.
Cr Murray Guy predicted the next step would be for the library to buy hundreds of the reading tablets for hire to customers. Mrs Best denied this was the direction the library was heading.
A print book cost the library about $29, compared with about $17 to download an e-book by a private buyer.