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Requested Item:
| Title | Being analog : creating tomorrow's libraries / Walt Crawford. |
| Author | Crawford, Walt. |
| Details | 0838907547 Chicago : American Library Association, 1999. vi, 245 p. ; 23 cm. |
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Signing up
To use NetBooks you must first register to the system (it takes just 3 minutes) and have a valid credit card and reside in Australia. There are no other requirements. You don't have to belong to a library. If you don't have a credit card then you can still use NetBooks but you must do so with the help of the friendly librarians at your local library.
The resources of Australia's libraries are one of the country's greatest assets. In modern econo-politico jargon, libraries contribute to the efficient running of the information market by aggregating the information demands of consumers (you) and resources (the information you want). Millions of Australians create a large market. Thousands of Australian libraries creates a huge resource. NetBook helps demand meet supply as efficiently as possible.
For you it means you can get access to the books you want, easily, quickly and cheaply, even if your local library doesn't have it on the shelf.
For libraries it means more borrowing (better utilization of their assets) and more income from the modest borrowing charge.
A simple view is that libraries lend most of their books "for free" to their patrons. However, there are obvious costs to both parties:
NetBooks allows libraries to recover some of their costs as borrowers are willing to pay for the convenience of home or office delivery of the books they want to borrow. For most borrowers, this convenience is worth more than the cost of the service, so both libraries and borrowers benefit.
As well, as part of the Australian Government's Building BetterSomethingOrOtherElse Program, all libraries which participate in NetBook by lending at least 400 titles per year to non-local borrowers receive a federal grant of $2000 pa. Libraries lending over 1200 titles per year receive an additional $4000 pa. This program has cost the taxpayers a mere $3M pa yet resulted in a dramatic increase in the circulation of books and hence benefited learning and recreation in the community.
Borrowers pay $4.95 per book. This charge is distributed as follows:
| Credit card processing | 0.50 |
| Postal costs (outbound, inbound) | 2.00 |
| Library handling (bid to loan, off self, checkout/package, unpackage/checkin, on shelf) | 2.45 |
From a "normal" (local borrower) loan transaction, libraries get no income. From NetBook transactions libraries get $2.45 (plus overdue fees, see below). The checkout/checkin/on shelf processing is performed regardless by libraries for each loan, so effectively the $2.45 is paid for bidding to make the loan, getting the title from the shelf, packaging and unpackaging it. NetBook helps make these steps extremely efficient, resulting in real net income for participating libraries.
Borrowers are fined a fixed $0.79 cents for each overdue item plus an additional fee of $0.79 for each day it is overdue. As these charges are collected as part of the single credit card processing transaction associated with the loan (see below) there is no extra credit card processing fee and all proceeds from overdue fines are passed as income to the lending library.
NetBook users are encouraged to supply an email when they register. As well as being used to keep users informed of the progress of their loan fulfilment, this email address is sent a reminder 5 days before an item is due and again when it is overdue.
When you borrow a book, a debit of $50 ("bond") is made against your credit card. If you return the book by the due date, a credit of $45.05 is refunded. If you return the book late the refunding credit is reduced by the late fees.
Your refund is reduced by the cost of replacing the book. The cost of replacing the book includes a significant acquisition cost, and typically a further charge will be made on your credit card to cover the total replacement cost. You agree to these terms when you signup for NetBooks, just as you agree to excess usage costs been charged from your credit card by your ISP...
The onus is on you to prove the book was lost in the post and to recover the charges made by NetBook against your credit card from Australia Post.
Yes.
No. Some material will not be lent (but it may be copied for you by a separate service, Copies Direct. You will be notified of rejected requests on the web site and by email. In some special cases, some libraries may require an increased bond (over the $50) before an item is lent. Again, you will be informed by the web site and by email in such cases and you'll have to consent to the increase in the bond and possible increases in postal charges (to cover registered mail) or restrictions such as "pickup at local library".
Yes. Just apply for an extra week borrowing period when you register, or at any other time. If you live in a remote community it will be automatically granted.
Libraries are paid from the loan charge and late fees. The operation of the system is funded from two sources:
Absolutely not. No personal information is ever given to advertisers. Broad profiles and physical location are used to allow advertisers to produce more relevant material, but advertisers never interact directly with NetBooks users unless that interaction is initiated by the users.
NetFlix rents DVDs on a subscription basis: you pay so much per month for the right to have so many DVDs on loan.
NetFlix and NetBooks deal in different resource domains:
Ideally, your local library or a library nearby, which minimises postal costs and delays. When you register with NetBooks you are encouraged to nominate the libaries of which you are a member.
When you request a book from NetBook, the system determines which libraries have that book available for loan by automatically interacting with each holding library's catalogue. If one of "your" libraries holds on shelf the item you're requesting then they are first asked to supply it. Otherwise, libraries physically close to you are the preferred suppliers, but any library with the item can "bid" to supply it. After a short interval (typically 1 hour), the physically closest bidding library to you is asked to supply the item.
NetBook provides software to libraries to help them bid for loans and in most instances, respond automatically to bidding requests in real time without human intervention.
Users of Amazon love the targeted suggestions for other material based on the buying habits of Amazon customers. Library circulation (borrowing) data can be similarly used when a large circulation database is available.
NetBook swaps gross circulation data for Amazon's sales data to help both systems recommend titles to their users.
Libraries may bid to fulfil your request the moment it is received. If your local library can fulfil the request, the loan will be arranged within seconds. Otherwise, the bidding process may take up to an hour, depending on whether human intervention is required. In rare cases where an item is difficult to supply it may take up to 4 business hours to finalise the bid.
Once a bid is accepted, the winning library is instructed to fulfil the request: find the title on the shelf, check it out to the NetBook system borrower, print the address label, affix it to the envelope and insert the book and a reply-paid envelope. Daily pickups by Australia Post mean that most titles enter the mail system within 24 hours.
As most deliveries are local, most are made within the next 24 hours.
Delays may occur on hard-to-get items which must be sourced from distant libraries. Sometimes the bidding library will not be able to find the item on the shelf (in which case, bidding is restarted). Sometimes no library will have the available item - all copies may be on loan, in which case you are informed via the web site and by email. You may then elect to cancel the request or be placed in a queue to receive the item.
ILL is on life support already. Let it go...
Kent Fitch, Mar 2006
Version 0.03 Prototype service with stale data; this is not a production service.
Uses the Lucene library.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.1 Australia License. |