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At the library my mother worked at, apparently they would do most of the book acquisition based on requests. That also determined how many copies to buy. Movies, too. (The buyer did have some discretion for other books though)
As she passed away a few years ago, I can't ask her about how they handle e-books, but I suspect the requests tell them what to buy, but they don't buy them in nearly big as numbers (probably because the budget is much smaller, I would imagine).
Part of the thing with the library is like regular people, once the big demand is over, they get rid of the excess books. Some they'd sell to people, I think some they sell to smaller libraries, and some they just throw out. (Which benefited me greatly)
But with e-books, they never really need to be thrown out to make room. So that's probably another reason there are less copies available.
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