Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom
I was looking for a couple books on my library's Overdrive cite, wanting to buy them through the site, as my library gets credit. Well, although Amazon used to be there, it was not for any books I chose.
|
Go girl! You made a real discovery.
I don't know how to count titles that previously were borrowable in a certain format, whether ePUB or Kindle, but are no longer. However, I was able to check something a little similar -- whether eBooks a library added recently are just as likely to be available for Kindle as older titles. And there is indeed a trend towards titles being more available for ePUB than Kindle. Here's what I just found:
Free Library of Philadelphia Overdrive ePUB eBook - Kindle Ratio
Added More Than a Year Ago:_________1.07
Added between 4 and 11 months ago:__1.07
Added between 2 and 3 months ago:___1.08
Added in last 30 days:______________1.22
Brooklyn Public Library Overdrive ePUB eBook - Kindle Ratio
Added more than a year ago:_________1.03
Added between 4 and 11 months ago:__1.03
Added bweteen 2 and 3 months ago:___1.11
Added in Last 30 Days:______________1.24
So, compared to six months ago, the chances that a new title will be ePUB-only may have tripled in Philadelphia, and increased by a factor of eight in Brooklyn. I say
may have because there are an undertermined number of titles that were Kindle-only. If known, this would change the "tripled" and "factor of eight" observations, but the ratios are what they are.
My best guess for the difference between Philadelphia and Brooklyn is the much smaller Philadelphia sample size, especially when it comes to recent acquisitions. Note that Philadelphia only acquired 163 Kindle titles in the past 30 days, compared to 5,363 in Brooklyn. So I think the Brooklyn results are more significant.
Who is responsible for this? Publishers? Overdrive? Amazon? I do not know. I do know that, at least in the two biggest American Overdrive collections easily accessible to out-of-area patrons, titles are increasingly likely to be available for ePUB but not Kindle. And, combining my evidence with Sidney's Mom's Chicago-land experience, the trend is likely widespread.
__________________________________________________
P.S. Here are raw numbers behind the above ratios, obtained from the "Advanced Search" feature of
http://freelibrary.lib.overdrive.com/ and
http://digitalbooks.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/:
Philadelphia
Epub Ebooks All Dates: 20,242
Added More Than a Year Ago: 14,734
Added in Last Year: 5,508
Added between 4 and 11 months ago: 4,397
Added in Last 3 Months: 1,111
Added between 2 and 3 months ago: 912
Added in Last 30 days: 199
Kindle All Dates: 18,916
Added More Than a Year Ago: 13,800
Added in Last Year: 5,116
Added between 4 and 11 months ago: 4,108
Added in Last 3 Months: 1,008
Added between 2 and 3 months ago: 845
Added in Last 30 Days: 163
Brooklyn
Epub Ebooks All Dates: 54,221
Added more than a year ago 34,652
Added in Last Year: 19,569
Added between 4 and 11 months ago 5,713
Added in Last 3 Months: 13,856
Added between 2 and 3 months ago 7,229
Added in Last 30 days: 6,627
Kindle All Dates: 50,958
Added more than a year ago 33,528
Added in Last Year: 17,430
Added between 4 and 11 months ago 5,528
Added in Last 3 Months: 11,902
Added between 2 and 3 months ago 6,539
Added in Last 30 Days: 5,363