It would be great if all the lawyers commenting would say whether or not they are commenting in a general way, of if they know the fine details. I know it would help me to understand the situation better.
At any rate, it can be fun to speculate.
To me this case has more to do with the ownership of a product. I always (and I have no clue as to why) thought that they (the libraries) bought the books with the stipulation that they lend out only one licensed copy at a time.
So the question that pops into my mind is, Is OverDrive actually buying the ebooks and simply managing the distribution for the libraries? Simple. Who has the receipts. But maybe I'm the one being simple.
The publishers want to restrict the number of times that a library can lend out an ebook. What does that do to OverDrive? Managing millions (tens of millions?) of decreasing ebook life spans for hundreds of thousands libraries could make it prohibitively expensive for all concerned.
Did the libraries pay $X for each ebook. That part should be simple (even if there are a lot of restrictions as to how they can use the ebooks). Again, who has the receipts?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sil_liS
If you think about the total, it looks insane, but it comes down to $227 for each library for one year. The huge increase that they are complaining about is from the fact that they are paying $32 for each library for this year.
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I have to agree, in part. The libraries got a bargain with only $32 per branch. But that's just my WAG.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sil_liS
Title: Automation and Technology Coordinator
Salary: $42,000 – $48,000
Compare that to the current administration fee to OD of $10,800 for 2011, and the one that was considered unacceptable for 2012 of $25,000.
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This is Kansas. That salary
might be of interest people in South Dakota too. But not many other places. And remember, this is probably the top IT position!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sil_liS
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they currently have more (than) 10 times the usage compared to 2006, what do you expect?
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Interesting.
Just how big was the ebook/library traffic in 2006?
In Kansas no less!
I have a population listing of 2,764,000 for the whole state of
Kansas in 2006
Any guesses as to what percentage of the population was reading ebooks back then?
Lets take a totally preposterous guess- 1/2 of 1% in 2006.
2006 Population of the state of Kansas = 2,764,000
One half of one percent of the population reading ebooks = 13,820
A 10% increase in usage =
1,382 more people ereading.
NO, NO, NO! That's way to small! lets try 1% of the Kansas population in 2006.
2006 Population of the state of Kansas = 2,764,000
One percent of the population reading ebooks = 27,640
A 10% increase in usage =
2,764 more people ereading.
And remember - I'm making the assumption that all those people are getting their ebooks from the library!
Well it doesn’t matter if the 10% increase was 1,382 or 2,764 more people ereading. That's a lot of people. For Kansas.
Now how much of an increase was OverDrive looking for?
Oh yeah;
"OD is requesting a more than 690% admin fee increase within the next 3 years."
I wonder if I can ask my boss for a 90% pay raise, never mind a 690% increase.
