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I don't think libraries should charge for e-content.
First, philosophically I think that libraries should be tax supported and free to patrons (and $150 of my property taxes go directly to my library).
Second, charging fees would inevitably harm lower income patrons. (And it would *not* be easy to allow them to get the books for free - you would need to set up income standards, first of all...and then you would need some sort of proof of income, and then you would need to devote bureaucratic time to making sure that the tax forms or whatever they submitted justified the lower fees. And then you would need some way of preventing individuals allowed to check out e-books for reduced fees from allowing *other* individuals to use their library cards for free e-books. This kind of fraud would probably be impossible to stop unless you required patrons to come to the library in person with ID...which sort of goes against the e-book idea anyway.
So either you charge no one, or you charge everyone.
But if you decide to charge people, how do you do that - do they have a CC on file with the library that is charged per book? What if they don't have a CC?
It looks to me like money collected for checking out e-books might not be enough to pay the expenses of collecting the money in the first place.
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