The initial catalog consists of “a national collection of 1500 titles made available to all RNBP libraries and 25 regional collections accessible only to users in each Intermunicipal Network and Metropolitan Library Network”.
A new public library service, which will allow free access to digital books and audiobooks across the country through a platform, will be available and operational online on January 27, in an initiative by the Directorate-General for Books.
Called BiblioLED, this digital public library is aimed at all users registered in municipal libraries integrated into the National Network of Public Libraries (RNBP), and will be available from 3pm next Monday, announced this Monday thewhich manages the service.
A BiblioLED tem by objectives “foster reading habits, promote quality services in municipal libraries, promote digital literacy and facilitate access to digital books and audiobooks, in addition to the in-person service already offered by the 445 libraries” integrated into the RNBP, adds DGLAB.
Service will be available 24/7
The initial catalog consists of “a national collection of 1500 titles made available to all RNBP libraries and 25 regional collections accessible only to users in each Intermunicipal Network and Metropolitan Library Network”.
The content available, in digital book and audiobook format, with fiction and non-fiction titles, is mostly in Portuguese, indicates DGLAB.
The service will be permanently accessible – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – through ‘smartphones’, ‘tablets’, ‘online’ readers and ‘e-readers’, from anywhere, making it possible “adjust the reading mode for greater comfort, modifying the type and size of the font, the spacing between lines and the background color”.
To access, the reader simply needs to be registered with an RNBP municipal library, which has subscribed to the BiblioLED service. Before any loan, the user can preview the book to assess the interest of its content and can also “reserve” a book that is not available, being notified by ’email’ as soon as it is.
In December, the Portuguese Association of Publishers and Booksellers (APEL) warned of some “weaknesses in the digital lending platform” BiblioLED, which were mainly related to “security and copyright”and with “the lack of budgetary clarity”for not discriminating “between funds allocated to technology and content”which could allow “the selection of content [ficasse] in the hands of the platform provider” e “prioritize commercial interests to the detriment of cultural and educational curation”.
These alerts appeared at a time when the deputy director general of DGLAB, Bruno Eiras, told Lusa that the service was still finalizing “the parameterizations for the different regional catalogs” and the “stress tests”.
