Published a year after No Shelf Required: E-Books in Libraries, the prolific Sue Polanka has assembled a second collection on e-books in libraries.1No Shelf Required 2 (NSR2) builds on the evidence that e-books are no longer a novelty for libraries; several chapters cite the Library Journal survey on e-book holdings for public and academic libraries and school media centers to document the growth of e-book holdings. Now that e-books are well established in libraries of all types, NSR2 addresses issues beyond acquisition and application to include access, preservation, and integration. The result is maturation of the subject that is reflected in the content and the experience of the contributors.

Polanka is to be commended for assembling a diverse group of contributors. Of the sixteen chapters, six are written by academic librarians, four by school media specialists, and two by public librarians. The remaining contributors are a K–12 teacher, a publisher, a web developer, and a social worker. Just as the authors are primarily, but not exclusively, librarians, so is the expected audience primarily, but not exclusively, librarians—publishers, parents, teachers, and anyone who deals peripherally with e-books via their library will find a chapter or two of interest.

The first chapter gives an overview of four libraries that have gone “bookless.” Librarians will be familiar with these as they include Cushing Academy and three academic libraries. What may be less familiar is how these libraries have uniformly repurposed former book space with service and student support space. This inaugural chapter is an appropriate launch for the rest of the book because it addresses the question, “If we have little or no physical materials, then what will define these spaces as libraries?” (1–2).

The first third of the book deals with access issues, the middle third with what might be loosely described as opportunities for libraries created by the proliferation of e-books, and the last third with e-reader implementation programs.

Access chapters address issues that apply to print books with an e-twist: weeding, RDA, and preservation.² They also cover issues unique to e-books that are perhaps infrequently considered by e-book managers. Chapter 2, for instance, addresses the digital divide from the viewpoint of a social worker, who suggests that e-books may actually inhibit access to information for the moderately poor because their use requires devices, readers, or Internet access. The chapter gives helpful insights into the limitations of households at the poverty line. Chapter 3 addresses access for the “print disabled,” defined here as a “learning, visual or physical disability that makes it difficult or impossible to access print” easily (37). The chapter assumes some familiarity with libraries, web protocols, and disability standards, and is the longest and most detailed section of the book. Despite its density, this chapter provides a basic understanding of e-book accessibility issues for those who merely want to skim. Those needing a deeper understanding can learn about assistive technologies, the status of the National Information Standards Organization’s (NISO) accessibility initiatives and the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and the current legal environment for e-reading in higher education.

Use of mobile devices—a critical topic as librarians increasingly respond to patron questions about downloading e-books to personal devices—is covered in chapter 4. Lisa Carlucci Thomas relates the 2009 Yale study of e-books on four mobile devices (two of which are no longer in popular use) in which Yale librarians tested access to their e-book content on twenty-five e-book platforms. Although the platforms and the rate of e-book acquisition will mirror that of many academic libraries, this chapter will be more useful as a model for similar studies in one’s own library rather than for its outcome, which showed that 84 percent of Yale’s e-book content could be read, at least minimally, on the devices tested. The chapter challenges librarians to learn about e-readers to stay at the forefront of technology.

Chapter 5 covers e-book preservation, a potentially lackluster topic that becomes fascinating in the hands of Amy Kirschoff of Portico. The digital nature of e-books makes them more fragile than print books and, although libraries purchase the content, the books reside “in files encumbered with DRM software on proprietary appliances and on vendor held and maintained computers” (71). Kirschoff provides need-to-know information about certified preservation agencies; this is a side of e-book acquisitions that is not often considered in the licensing process.

The original No Shelf Required (NSR1) did not address e-book weeding, so it is appropriate that this topic is covered by Alice Crosetto in chapter 6 of NSR2. Crosetto’s response for why to weed e-books is simply why not, which does not adequately address the need to weed. The author might have addressed weeding in more depth, considering the removal of e-book records from the catalog versus removing them from the supplier’s platform.

The chapter on RDA, aptly subtitled “And Why Should Ebook Managers Care?,” makes an eloquent and easily understood argument that access to e-books via the catalog will be affected by RDA. The chapter forcefully contends that the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2) is “dead code,” which challenges some assertions that RDA is simply a modification of AACR2 (104).³ Either way, this chapter provides a truly excellent overview of RDA for noncatalogers. The author makes the connection between Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and e-books as expressions of a work.⁴ Although this chapter has little to do directly with e-books, having information about RDA included in this one comprehensive chapter is helpful.

The latter part of the book looks at practical models of e-book and e-reader implementation in public and academic libraries and school media centers. For public libraries, much of the focus is on the aggregator Overdrive, and this part of the book addresses challenges of circulating e-readers as well as the hidden costs of and issues involved with staff training. Chapter 9, which offers substantial content regarding staff training, should be required reading for all public library directors regardless of their library’s state of e-book implementation.

The last five chapters report on e-reader lending programs in an academic library and three school media centers. These chapters discuss the how-to’s of launching such programs, from presenting to a board of education to physically managing the devices.

Comparing NSR2 with its predecessor is tempting. Both share the same editor and same format. While NSR1 suffered somewhat from inconsistent coverage of topics across multiple chapters and little cohesion between chapters, NSR2 chapters can be read alone without consulting other chapters for additional information. NSR2 is cohesive in that common themes run throughout the book: the shift in focus on service over physical material management and the concomitant opportunity for libraries to become places of content creation and collaboration, the digital divide, and libraries’ dependence on publisher-imposed limits to access and vendor platforms. One expects some unevenness in chapters with multiple authors, but this is not the case; the tone is consistent and concepts like digital rights management (DRM); RDA; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); digital object identifier (DOI); and EPUB (an open e-book standard) are explained clearly and succinctly throughout.

A clear strength of NSR2 is its currency with content as recent as July 2011 (a spotlight section on the recent Harper-Collins e-book controversy is included), but the book also is temporal; many of its chapters will be dated in a few years. For now, however, NSR2 is a practical and indispensable guide to e-book management for every library.