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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Can you provide a link to the eBook portal of a library in one of those countries?
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The leading German library service provider is Onleihe.de; it works pretty much the way Overdrive does in the US. It's the libraries that decide which books to licence, but I don't think there's a comprehensive list for you to review. Most German ebooks should be available somewhere, but it must be understood that German publishers don't really seem to like ebooks all that much (yet), so a (rapidly decreasing, but still not insignificant) number of books are never published electronically in the first place. That said, libraries generally have the right to buy and provide their patrons with all media, be it books, videos, music or software. Publishers receive additional compensation for this compulsory licensing.
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You previously endorsed a service requiring one-chapter-at-a-time downloads.
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I wouldn't really call that an endorsement; it was merely showing that there
are publishers who do issue campus-wide licenses, and without DRM to boot. It's early days, but I still think desperately trying to mimic the "one patron per book at any one time" model of yesteryear is ridiculous when dealing with digital media.
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My point is that friction in return for eBook borrowing is inescapable, even for a highly pro-patron librarian.
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I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree here. Speaking about removing friction, our collection management has recently taken a (for us) novel approach: if you are looking for a book that we don't have in our collection yet, we'll happily buy it and let you have it first (certain conditions apply). It's still much cheaper than buying hundreds of books on the off-chance that somebody, someday might want to read them.