Nancy Mills, CIPA President, and James LaRue, Director, Douglas County Libraries
The great news for copyright owners of independently published works comes out of Colorado and has made it into Publishers Weekly, American Libraries, Laptop, and Library Journal!
The Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) which is a 501(c)(6) trade and professional association that supports and promotes self-published authors and the independent publishing industry has reached an agreement with Colorado’s Douglas County Libraries system. This agreement gets quality and vetted e-books by Colorado Independent Publishers into the hands of the reading public.
| The primary goal of the Library e-Book Agreement between CIPA and the Douglas County Libraries is to facilitate the library’s identification and acquisition of e-book versions of quality independently published books by CIPA members. CIPA site |
“Libraries are natural partners with independent publishers,” said Joseph Sanchez, the director of Library and Learning Services for the Red Rocks Community College. Mr. Sanchez, along with Jamie LaRue, Director of Douglas County Libraries, and Kenn Amdahl, past president of CIPA and a successful author and independent publisher in his own right, came up with the concept that led to this agreement. “We understand and value both copyrights and the great value of alternative viewpoints. We can easily integrate e-books into our collections, ensuring one use at a time, but also exposing authors to precisely the people who are looking for them.”
One of the main goals in working through the implementation of this concept was to protect the e-books of the copyright owners while allowing public access to these ebooks through the library system. One goal identified by the planning committee for this project was to “Identify and address legal and procedural issues involved in acquiring and loaning e-books from independent publishers.”
Copyright will be protected in this arrangement by a Digital Rights Management (DRM) system. Each copy the library district has purchased will be checked out one at a time, and the e-book will disappear off the borrower’s e-Reader after a specified period of time.
This is an exciting new concept and CIPA and the Douglas County Library system are to be applauded for their efforts in having the vision to comprehend the need and the courage and fortitude it took to implement the idea!
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