I know what some of you are probably thinking right now.
“Ebooks? If only he knew what kind of Byzantine arrangement eBooks are for libraries! Between the publishers and the content providers and the restrictions and whatnot, it’s just a giant tangled mess.”
But, even perhaps without that knowledge, Guy’s point still has some legs. Reinvention is not necessarily a clean process and it is something that libraries are undergoing right now at an imperfect, inconsistent pace. The advent of eBooks is undeniable; it will change how people perceive and access books when they have the option of getting one from wherever they are.
In looking towards that evolution of libraries, the demise of Borders should be a powerful lesson for libraries. Take a look at their business plan in the last ten years. They widened their movie and music selection, added a café, and then struggled onto the eBook market and eBook reader platforms. I’m not saying that this is something that will happen to libraries, but that kind of change should sound a bit familiar.
(Yes, I concede that they had a profit motive that libraries don’t, but their course of action to change their strategy does have parallels.)
If anything, at least someone outside of libraryland is pulling for us. We could use all the library champions we can get.
Agnostic, Maybe 
It is shocking to me that our biggest ebook vendor doesn’t seem to realize or care that their platform is all but impenetrable … and that it doesn’t seem to be that difficult with anyone else. Because libraries have been tied to that place, we looked a lot clunkier than we wanted to be. Seriously, we would LOVE to make ebook lending fast and easy; it’s easier on us. It will be interesting to see the outcome of increased competition.