Publishers are looking to limit how libraries do digital lending. It’s infuriating. I’m going to have to go wear my unsexy mouthguard, I’m clenching my jaw to steel-bending proportions the more I read.
Start here: Bobbi L. Newman explained the great crapful news from OverDrive about digital lending:
Digital book sales are now a significant percentage of all publisher and author revenue. As a result several trade publishers are re-evaluating eBook licensing terms for library lending services. Publishers are expressing concern and debating their digital future where a single eBook license to a library may never expire, never wear out, and never need replacement….
Under this publisher’s requirement, for every new eBook licensed, the library (and the OverDrive platform) will make the eBook available to one customer at a time until the total number of permitted checkouts is reached.
In other words, the publisher sets a limit to the number of times a digital book can be lent, then when that limit is reached, that library must purchase another copy.
But wait! There’s more! That mysterious “publishers” referred to in the OverDrive email also says they want access to patron information. From the original OverDrive Update (available as a PDF on LibrarianByDay):
our publishing partners have expressed concerns regarding the card issuance policies and qualification of patrons who have access to OverDrive supplied digital content. Addressing these concerns will require OverDrive and our library partners to cooperate to honor geographic and territorial rights for digital book lending, as well as to review and audit policies regarding an eBook borrower’s relationship to the library (i.e. customer lives, works, attends school in service area, etc.).
Let’s not let libraries do their own jobs. That would be a terrible thing.
But Library Journal’s Josh Hadro has the megascoop: guess which publisher it was?
HarperCollins.
HarperCollins Caps Loans on Ebook Circulations.
In the first significant revision to lending terms for ebook circulation, HarperCollins has announced that new titles licensed from library ebook vendors will be able to circulate only 26 times before the license expires.
Mention of the new terms was first made in a letter from OverDrive CEO Steve Potash to customers yesterday. He wrote:“[W]e have been required to accept and accommodate new terms for eBook lending as established by certain publishers. Next week, OverDrive will communicate a licensing change from a publisher that, while still operating under the one-copy/one-user model, will include a checkout limit for each eBook licensed. Under this publisher’s requirement, for every new eBook licensed, the library (and the OverDrive platform) will make the eBook available to one customer at a time until the total number of permitted checkouts is reached.”
Though the letter leaves the publisher unnamed, HarperCollins confirmed today to LJ that it is the publisher referred to.The publisher also issued a short statement: “HarperCollins is committed to the library channel. We believe this change balances the value libraries get from our titles with the need to protect our authors and ensure a presence in public libraries and the communities they serve for years to come.”
Josh Marwell, President, Sales for HarperCollins, told LJ that the 26 circulation limit was arrived at after considering a number of factors, including the average lifespan of a print book, and wear and tear on circulating copies.
Cue me saying, “Oh, Harper. What are you thinking?!”
After library digital lending was a very big topic at Tools of Change and at DBW, it seems we’d taken two symbolic steps forward in using dialogue to bridge the huge gulf between libraries/their patrons and publishers, but while our readerly backs were turned, Harper leaped backwards.
Lip service to the reader, we has some.
With libraries serving as gateways to reading addictions, and an opportunity to try books that readers might not otherwise afford, this decision seems greedy at best and dumbfounding at worst. I understand their desire to equate a paper copy’s disintegration at the hands of multiple readers with the digital copy being lent the same number of times, but the upshot of that policy is to say to libraries, “We want you, with your shrinking budgets and your closing branches, to buy more books. KThxbye!” This is not a business model that works. It’s a business model that insults readers and libraries.
What do you think? Do you think HarperCollins is taking a step toward preserving its bottom line, or is this a step toward bottoming out their own progress?
ETA: Eric Hellman has a wider-angle examination of the situation, saying, “While I don’t think it’s tenable over the long term for libraries to specialize in inconvenience, I still think it’s very important for libraries to be offering ebooks through services such as Overdrive. Even if the lending models of today turn out to be transitional, they help everyone involved become comfortable with library ebooks. Once the library ebook experience becomes embedded in our everyday lives, readers, publishers, authors and librarians will be able to recognize the novel digital distribution models that benefit everyone.”
ETA: Courtney Milan examines the news from her own reader’s perspective, saying, “Libraries are the future of reading. When the economy is down, we need to make it easier for people to buy and read books for free, not harder. It is stupid to sacrifice tomorrow’s book buyers for today’s dollars, especially when it’s obvious that the source in question doesn’t have any more dollars to give you
ETA: Literary Sluts have an excellent point: “At the end of the day, the only reason I ever recommended the Nook, Sony, or Kobo readers over the Kindle was access to eBooks through your library. I believe today’s announcement is a sign of things to come for Overdrive and that soon there will be no advantage at all to those eReaders.”
ETA: Peter Brantley has a savory idea: “I would love to see ALA and libraries do a hall of shame. For a day: pull off Harper frontlist books from shelves with PR.”
ETA: I found this amazing link: Lendle, a librarian-coordinated network of lending Kindle books to people who want to borrow them. Found via this thought-provoking blog post.
As someone who once worked at a library, here’s my spiel:
One, most library books circulate well over 26 times.
Two, the more money books cost, the fewer books libraries can buy. So HarperCollins, you won’t be making more money. Libraries only have so much dinero in their coffers.
Three, the day libraries start handing over their patron information to anyone, let alone publishers, is the day I find out I’m secretly a princess. No, make that a warrior princess. Libraries have a strong code of ethics, which includes protecting the privacy of their patrons. And libraries already do a good job of ensuring that their patrons are area residents. They have a vested interest in doing so. Patrons who want a library card but aren’t from the area typically have to pay for one.
Four, if people check out an author’s book from a library (hard copy or e-book) and enjoy it, they might be hooked enough to start buying that author’s books for their own private collections.
I’d like to point out that a great deal of the books on my bookshelves are published by HarperCollins. As a publisher, HC has high standards and one can always tell so much time has gone into each book. (Seriously, I get butterflies every time I see the cover of one of Melissa Marr’s books.) But I must disagree with this decision. Perhaps it’s back to the drawing board on this one, HC.
Three things occur to me while reading the article and consequent comments, one of which has already been covered (thank you, Jean): at least one publisher (Baen) is deeply committed to being friendly to eBooks and is apparently thriving on it.
The second refers to the price of eBooks. It seems from the comments that most people expect eBooks to be cheaper than the paper equivalent, and frankly so did I…until I went to look up Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld (OK, so a single data point isn’t strictly data, but finding more would be depressing). On Amazon UK, the Kindle edition is more expensive than the hardcover, and nearly twice as expensive as the softcover.
The third thing refers to the rather surprising comments about whether “literature” is worth taking care of: I too was rather surprised that a visitor here would have the temerity to disrespect the romance genre 😉 What bubbled to the surface of my mind in rebuttal was a mangled quote from a Barbara Hambly book (much loved, sadly in storage for ages so not to hand): The Time of the Dark if I recall correctly. The lead characters are evacuating their homes to escape the titular monsters, and one of them is vacillating over whether to take her favourite fiction or yet another religious text. Another, the wonderful Gil-Shalos (a historian, but she might as well be a librarian 😉 tells her to take the fiction. The local religious types will be bringing along copies of all the religious texts anyone will ever need, after all. I distinctly recall her lamenting that so much detail about historical societies has been lost to history because the everyday stuff (books, etc) has been lost in favour of copy after copy of the officially-sanctioned religious tracts.
Whew: that went on rather longer than I meant, sorry…
Captcha: both53 — I’m neither a bitch nor a cat, and I’m not 53 (yet) so not quite sure what the system is trying to tell me there 😉
Okay… I can understand the publisher wanting a book replaced after a certain amount of reads. Books do wear out. However, if they had this in mind, the smart way to go about it, would have been to ask several large libraries how many times a popular book is read over it’s lifetime. Meaning, before they have to replace it. Let’s give it an arbitrary number here and say it’s 110 times. Well, then, after 120 times an e-book has been ‘checked out’, they would be within their rights to ask for a repurchase, but I believe it should be at a reduced rate—say half price. The reason for that is, the book is obviously no longer new and the chance that it would be lent out as many times slim.
This helps the publisher, it saves the library money because they would have to pay full price to replace a hard copy and it helps all of the readers who want to read it and can’t afford to buy it. That’s my opinion, such as it is. LOL
Wow, lose your internet connection for a week and the whole place explodes.
I was in the big city this week (hence no internet) and got to visit some big bookstores with lots of selection, and found a few new books out there by fave authors I had no idea were around. (And didn’t buy, because I want an e-version, so I hope I can find one.)
Since I got my ereader, and especially since the agency bullshit started, I’ve been unable to find or buy my traditional favourites by the Big 6 publishers, and have discovered other authors by more flexible publishing companies. I’m certainly not hurting for stuff to read. I feel kinda sad that I’m losing track of some really good stories, but not sad enough to put a lot of effort into tracking them down.
Honestly, as a reader (who discovered my love for books at libraries), I don’t give a flying fuck about publishers. I don’t go looking for the new Book & Sons release, I go looking for the new release by my AUTHOR. I browse (in the library, and on-line for excerpts) for new AUTHORS. I notice the publisher if the quality is crap or is exceptionally good, but otherwise they’re invisible.
In the end, if the publishers don’t get their shit together, it’s they who’ll lose out. Authors will move to more savvy publishers or will self-publish. Readers will find them, and leave the publishers behind.