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Yes, in Quebec there is a law, la loi 51 (la Loi sur le développement des entreprises québécoises dans le domaine du livre / the law on the development of Quebec businesses in the book industry). One of the mandates of loi 51 is that public institutions (libraries and schools) are required to purchase books from an "accredited bookseller". Accredited bookstores account for more than 75% of Quebec book sales.
To be accredited, booksellers, publishers, and distributors must be Canadian and based primarily in Quebec. In addition to these basic requirements, the accredited bookseller must:
- be open year-round;
- be situated in an easy-access location for the public;
- be well-identified and use proper book display methods;
- have at all times at least 6,000 different titles, 2,000 of which are different titles published in Quebec
- demonstrate that in the year previous to the application for accreditation, they have met minimum sales requirements of the Ministry
- prove that they receive material from at least 25 accredited publishers[/and that they keep these materials on display for at least four months (unless otherwise agreed to with the publisher in question).
Archambault (now owned by the media company Quebecor) is the second-largest bricks-and-mortar bookstore chain in Quebec after the francophone bookstore chain Renaud-Bray; Chapters/Indigo is a distant thrird-place in the Quebec market. Archambault is also the biggest francophone ecommerce retailer in North America (a Quebec analogue of Amazon?), and operates a French language music download source, so it would be a natural fit for Archambault to operate a service similar to Overdrive. Mabiblionumerique uses Adobe Ids.
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