Service will be permanently available and is free for all registered in public municipal libraries. Initial catalog consists of a national collection of 1,500 titles. But the initiative has problems, warns APEL.
A new service of public libraries, which allows free access through a platform to digital books and audiobooks across the country, is available online from 15:00 this Monday, in an initiative of the Book Directorate-General .
Designated BiblioLEDthis digital public library is intended for all users registered in the municipal libraries integrated in the National Public Library Network (RNBP).
O Service will be permanently accessible -24 hours a day, seven days a week-through smartphones, tablets, online readers and e-readers from anywhere, and it is possible to adjust the reading mode, modifying the type and size of the letter, the spacing between lines and the color of the background.
To access, the reader is sufficient to be inscribed in a Municipal Library of RNBP, which has adhered to the service of Biblioled. The request will be available.
Before any loan, the user can preview the book to evaluate the interest of its content and can also “reserve” a book that is not available, being notified by email as soon as it is available again.
A question and answers guide is available online, to clarify questions about the new service.
1,500 titles will “foster reading habits”
The purpose of this new service is “to foster reading habits, promote quality services in municipal libraries, promote digital literacy and facilitate access to digital books and audiobooks, in addition to the face -to -face service already offered by the 445 libraries”, according to The Directorate-General of the Book, Archives and Libraries ().
The initial catalog is made up of “a National collection of 1,500 titles made available to all RNBP libraries and 25 regional collections only accessible to users in each intercity network and library metropolitan network ”.
Available content, in digital book format and audiobook, with fiction and non -fiction titles, are mostly in Portuguese. The electronic book platform is intended for readers of all ages and seeks to provide “good reading experiences to children, youth and adults” according to page information.
The project has a financing of about 900 thousand euros of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
Initiative “can harm independent bookstores”
The initiative “causes significant risks to the editorial and bookseller sector, compromising fundamental objectives such as promoting reading and balanced access to quality content, as well as the inability to fulfill the complementary role that the library network has with the booker sector” , warns the appeal in a statement quoted by, which points two major problems.
One is the fact that the selection of the available content is in the hands of a foreign entity, resulting in the “ignorance of the market and specificities of the Portuguese reader”. The other is the fact that editors are forced to pay additional fees.
But the new service may also have a “impact on the book’s value chain”, warns the Portuguese Association of Editors and Bookiers.
“The platform, without ensuring complementarity with physical books from a balanced licensing model, can impair independent bookstores and limit sustainable access to the book”. Finally, problems also refer to “security and copyright”.
