|
Windowing seems like such a non-issue to me. First, it seems to imply a steady stream of new books, so that having to wait eight weeks means you need to go eight weeks without library books, which is silly. In any case, new books aren't released in a constant steady stream; there are seasons during which the books expected to be most popular are released at once.
Second, when I see a new book at Overdrive and my library has one copy with a long waiting list already, I know they will be buying more. So you get on the list and see your wait time decrease drastically once the purchases hit the system. I think libraries may play a game of waiting to assess demand before committing to purchases, which seems reasonable. Windowing will just make that inherent.
I know some here feel they must read a new book by a favorite author as soon as it's released and why not? But they buy it. Personally, I can only identify two types of books where it's important to read it right away. The first are topical books, especially about the political scene, where you want to be part of the conversation when it comes out and by waiting six months not only have you missed out on the chatter, it's old news. With that type of book, exhaustive news coverage of all the best bits makes it less compelling for me anyway. The other, extremely limited type of immediate must read, is such an overwhelmingly popular fiction book that it would be impossible to avoid being spoiled if you don't read it now and stay offline while you do it, too. The last Harry Potter book was like that; if GRRM ever came out with the next book in his saga, it would be another. Not saying various communities don't have others where you need to read the book right away or miss out on the squeeing, (maybe the next Outlander?), but there really can't be that many of them for any one person.
TL;DR: Go ahead, window. It won't affect me and I doubt it will affect most people.
|