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Originally Posted by BWinmill
You do make some wonderful points, but here is a question: why should publishers be reaping the benefits of the digital revolution, while reducing a library's ability to do the same?
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I think that's a kind of weird question. It's not like e-books are just floating out in the world for free for everyone, like some sort of digital oxygen. The publishers are reaping the benefits of the digital revolution - to the extent that they are - because they own something that people are willing to pay for. But the libraries are also reaping the benefit of the digital revolution because they have a new product to offer users which does not take up any physical space.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ntsimp
Why would the library go along with such a deal? It's none of a seller's business what the buyer is going to do with a book. If public libraries are actually paying more for their paper books than we individuals do, they're wasting public funds.
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Well, as Steve pointed out, it's not as simple as that: the e-books that the library buys are more useful than a regular library book because they are a regular-print and large-print book at the same time; many books also have TTS.
More importantly, these books are different from pbooks because the library gets to basically outsource the whole storage/delivery/retrieval part of the lending transaction. The books aren't stored at the library and the library doesn't transmit them to the users and check to make sure that they're checked in - Overdrive (or whoever) takes care of all of that.
On the other hand, the libraries do lose out on additional revenue from late fees.
But, really, it's a business decision. If the library decides it's not worthwhile to buy e-books, they are free to do that. And if they decide that e-books are worthwhile even though more expensive, they are free to buy them. It's wrong to cast this in moral terms; it's just business.