阅读理解。
Net Library is a library that lends out digital (数字化的) books. It treats a digital book like a paperback
copy. It charges libraries per book per copy and gives publishers a cut of the total income.
From the consumer's (消费者) point of view, this means that if more than, say, five people want the latest
Danielle Steel romance novel, other people who request that book will get a message saying the title is
unavailable.
It's a model many publishers seem to have embraced. More than 350 gave the company rights to hand out
their digital works, and McGraw-Hill Corporation and Houghton Mifflin Corporation have put money in the
company. The California public libraries and about 1, 800 others across the US are trying out the Net Library
service.
Some librarians criticize the New Library model. Stanford University librarian Michael Keller argues that the
company is creating an unnatural fear of digital works, which is contrary to the ideas of the Internet.
Keller and some other librarians argue for the e-book vision set forth by EBrary. EBrary is starting a service
that lets us users read books for free.
But it will charge about 25 cents a page when a person tries to print out material or copy and paste it into a
different file or tries to download a copy onto a computer.
Christopher Warnock, chief executive of EBrary, believes most consumers won't want to buy entire books,
only the parts that interest them.
"There's not really a lot of good in owning an electronic file and having to store it and manage it. It doesn't
make sense," he said.
1. How do publishers get money from the Net Library?
A. They get money from selling their books to the Net Library.
B. They share the money with the Net Library.
C. They get money by cutting the cost of the books.
D. They get the money from the readers.
2. The underlined word "embraced" in the 3rd paragraph means ______.
A. taken something willingly
B. held something tightly
C. disliked something badly
D. tried out something hard
3. From the 2nd paragraph we can see consumers ______.
A. don't care if they are charged money
B. enjoy the service of the Net Library
C. don't like other people borrowing books
D. complain about the limited number of the new books
4. What does the last paragraph mean?
A. Net Library is not a good way for the consumers.
B. There is no need for consumers to have a whole book.
C. EBrary is not a good library for the consumers.
D. It's reasonable to charge the consumers money for copying some pages.
