Ebooks, Discovery, and the Library

Publishers, authors, booksellers, and librarians have traditionally thought of discovery as something that happens in a physical place. A patron browses the shelf, a librarian offers some reader's advisory, a new author is picked up from an artfully created display. Online discovery lags behind, despite Amazon's best efforts. People still pick books up based on word of mouth. Libraries, with entire sections of staff devoted to helping people pick out books, are word of mouth engines, but struggle to prove our worth to the rest of the book ecosystem. Ebooks make that even more difficult when the library as place is taken out of the equation. This session will explore some possibilities for libraries as channels of discovery in an ebook-dominated market.