Quote:
Originally Posted by doctorow
How is a library any different from, let's say, a car rental company? Why should libraries pay a multiple for the same e-book compared to what normal people pay, while car rentals get premium discounts when purchasing cars for their fleet? How are the two any different from each other? Why should e-books with little resale value have an artificial expiration date attached to them? Should rental cars automatically expire once they reach 10,000 miles?
(Before anyone asks, I am not not related to Cory Doctorow.)
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Cars wear out and require maintenance, plus they have to be replaced with newer models or no-one wants to rent them. Paper books require buildings to store them, staff to shelf and while some may be able to be leant more than 26 times, many aren't.
According to Henning's cost per circulation is rarely below $2.00 and in some smaller libraries much higher for paper books.
I will go out on a limb and say that the fact that many major libraries are acquiring ebooks by leaps and bounds and stocking 50 or more copies of the most popular books in ebook format, that it is in some way to their advantage to do this. In British Columbia all of the provinces libraries could link to the BC libraries ebook collection,. Now a lot seem to be acquiring a large independent collection and still linking to the BC collection as well.
Vancouver Public library started 2 or 3 years later than BC Libraries To Go and has almost double the amount of ebooks now.
And why does no one ever mention audio books in these discussions on cost. They always cost much more per circulation than paper books I believe.
Helen