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>It seems to me that reading this year's books is a luxury. I don't see a big >freedom to read issue with less affluent readers having to wait 6-12 >months, especially if there is an option to read a paper library copy a bit >sooner. If I have to wait a year so that the team creating the book can get >more income, I welcome that.
OK, lets take the "luxury" out... I'd have no problem with the publishers making "last year's" and older stuff available. I don't care if I'm reading a new author's first book that was published LAST year as opposed to yesterday. But, like some other folks, I frequently find my new authors by trying their first book at the library.
But, for a publisher to decide a "book" is only good for 26 loans before it has to be re-purchased is ludicrous. The librarians I've spoken to locally tell me they have books that have been loaned more than 200 times and are still in very good condition. Not always, but a very high percentage of the time. So, imposing such a draconian restriction is nothing more than a way to keep libraries from obtaining books from that publisher.
Likewise, if a publisher sells a hardcover book to a library for $30 (or whatever the price may be), but wants to charge the same library $90 for the same book in electronic format, I believe it's nothing more than extortion to keep the library from getting the e-book. Or sophistry on the part of the publisher to be able to say "Oh, we make our ebooks available to libraries."
>The number of books in most Overdrive collections continues to increase. I >am finding a little more than half of what I want to read this way.
Over the past several months, I've found exactly ONE title I wanted available in Overdrive and at one of the FOUR library systems (including Philadelphia) at which I'm a card holder. The overwhelming majority aren't available to libraries, and the very few others weren't in any of the systems I have access to.
>I would be more inclined to agree with you if you distinguished between >publishers that generally make their eBooks available to public libraries >(most of them) and those who do not (Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, >Hachette, Amazon).
I'm generally not sure what publisher, through all their cutouts, actually publishes who... I'm generally looking by author. For example, these are some of the folks on my current list that I haven't been able to find in any library: Ace Atkins: Lullaby, Nevada Barr: The Rope, C. J. Box: Force of Nature, Stephen Cannell: Any of the Shane Scully series, Tom Clancy: Locked On, Lisa Lutz: Any of the Spellmans series... And on, and on.
I suspect, like many people, I buy books I'm really interested in. Those that are lower on the interest scale I"m more likely to get from the library. If the publisher won't make the book available through the library, I"ll either read it on paper, or just take it off my interest list.
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