Goodbye Libraries? That's What Publishers Want

[jeffrey]

No joke. Of all the dangerous and dot-complex problems that American publishers face in the near future -- economic downturns, competition for leisure time, piracy -- perhaps the most explosive one could be libraries. Publishers and librarians are squaring off for a battle royal over the way electronic books and journals are lent out from libraries and over what constitutes fair use of written material.

washingtonpost.com: Pat Schroeder's New Chapter

[PrincessPerky]

I used to work in a library in a hospital..I spent my day copying text out of those fancy smancy medical journals..there is no way any one Dr could afford to pay the subscription to any one of them, but the hospital could pay and then let me copy all the articles for the Drs...somehow I can't understand wanting to make Drs work (and therefor patients suffer) with less information just so publishers can continue to afford shrimp cocktails.