Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
Why don't you think they buy more ebooks? Too expensive and too restrictive.
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The cost of building a new library for 30,000 books, and then buying the books, and then maintaining and staffing it for, say, ten years, is higher than the cost of ten years of Overdrive for the same number of books. At least -- it is based on the $3 million cost just to renovate my local branch a few years ago.
Yes, I realize that the library building does more than warehouse books. But most of ours is indeed warehouse and checkout -- the community room space is there, but it is small.
Also, some libraries have major auxiliary functions like teaching immigrants English. Again, ours does not, but it still cost almost $100 a book, just for major renovations and a modest increase in table-and-chairs space.
Of course, if they don't have to do renovations, the library building may be a sunk cost. So from that perspective, eBooks can indeed seem expensive.
Another possibility is that they just prefer paper to electronic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deskisamess
But I'm sure they are not buying them from Amazon in the same way a Kindle customer does.
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True.
Amazon doesn't cater to libraries for paper books either. Libraries mostly use a wholesaler like Ingram or Baker & Taylor. They pay extra for services such as cataloging.
P.S. Libraries do a lot more than I've listed. Children with chaotic home lives do homework there. I don't want to imply that all a library does is house and loan out books. I do want to suggest, however, that the total public library cost of ownership/leasing of a paper book, and of an eBook, for a comparable time period, seems roughly similar. I'd be shocked if Overdrive doesn't strongly consider total cost of ownership in pricing.