In only a few decades, people have moved from music cassettes, to CDs to the MP3 era; are there as many CDs on your bookshelf as there used to be? Or have they already turned into MP3s stored on your computer or enjoyed on your iPod? We are very fortunate to be in an era of constant change, having witnessed the process of new technologies replacing traditional ones many times. What's more, another wave of change is currently getting underway: namely, e- books.

E-books are slowly changing people's reading habits, whether through mobile phones, computers, or electronic readers; all can allow the reader to read the books they want in a more convenient way.

The author once contributed a piece about the difficulties libraries had with e- books, primarily mentioning the situation and difficulties domestic libraries faced in lending e-books. However,  how libraries should use e-books is a worldwide question. The author has taken excerpts from an article in the NY Daily News, and assembled a few key points. Shall we see how the problems libraries have faced with e-books are handled abroad?

Quantity of e- books: New York public libraries currently possess 33, 000 e-books which can be lent, and about 4.8 million printed books. Brooklyn library possesses 13,000 e-books in terms of numbers. Clearly, there is still quite a large gap between e-book and printed book numbers.
Length of Loan:  Readers can directly download and borrow e-books from the library website, and furthermore, the majority of e-books are loaned when the library itself is closed, which shows that e-books can greatly increase a library's rate of use.
Lending Model: The time limit on e-book loans is two weeks, making use of a concept similar to the printed book rights lendng concept. This means that when someone has borrowed a given book, one must then wait until it is returned before it can continue to be loaned and used. If more than 5 people are waiting for the same book, New York public libraries will automatically increase the number of copies purchased.

The author feels that the last point is the most interesting; if the length of loan for one person is two weeks, if 13 people are waiting in line, you have to wait half a year (26 weeks) before you can actually borrow the book you would like. The New York Public Library’s starting point is user convenience: if more than five people are waiting for something (which equates to around 10 weeks), it automatically buys more copies of the book, and customers can borrow the book more quickly. Moreover, such a system must be established on the basis of mutual trust between the library and publishers, otherwise it would be difficult to ensure that publishers would not employ “customers” to queue up so as to earn money.

Aside from this, the American Library Association says that there are now 5400 public libraries in America which provide e-book services. The main points of library e-book use are listed below:
• The majority of these libraries use the services of the OverDrive platform, which allows them to cut down on the number of servers needed, and bandwidth and maintenance costs.
• Libraries do not open book accounts, this information is set by OverDrive. Nor do libraries assume responsibility for e-book copyright issues.
• Presently, e-books are mostly read on PC or on smartphones; later, they will gradually develop into Kindle or iPad compatibility.

The importance of the library e-book topic is due to the fact that people have yet to establish the habit of buying e-books, and so the e-books purchased by libraries still account a large proportion of the e-book business model. Furthermore, libraries' e-book lending model will also become closer to the conventions of consumer use of e-books. Currently, the public library copyright question is a thorny issue still awaiting resolution, and we could perhaps refer to successful instances abroad in order to find a path towards solving it.