Quote:
Originally Posted by MGlitch
Your taxes equate to fractions of a cent per ebooks you borrow.
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Hmm.
Let's say -- $110.00 per eBook. Since there are more than 11,000 people in my county, and the Overdrive collection is county-wide, you are correct. But, then, if you divide the number of people by the number of titles, it's a lot more than fractions.
I pay $50 a year to the Brooklyn Library, and I'm sure a lot more than that, in local taxes, to my county and township libraries. A bit of state taxes also go to libraries, although our state's support of libraries has declined. I also pay federal taxes for library services, most of which I can't take advantage of, but some of which I can. (I have a son-in-law in the reserves, and that's enough of a nexus to give us legitimate access to one collection.)
Before eBooks, I directly paid the local library almost what I now pay Brooklyn -- in fines. No fine revenue must be one of the rarely-mentioned disadvantages, to libraries, of eBooks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MGlitch
Publishers are running a business. Businesses are out to make a profit, they do not exist to serve the public.
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I agree with most of your post so of course I'll pick out this one sentence I don't agree on
First, a lot of publishers are non-profit. University publishers are the obvious example.
Second, the idea that the only stakeholder a business should, or does, care about is the stockholders is both controversial and probably a minority view. I question whether most people who went into publishing did so because it was the most lucrative job they could possibly get -- although, admittedly, some did.
Of course, if the publishers don't care at all about financials, they won't be able to release lots of good books.
Some newspaper publishers are going non-profit due to the very bad financial conditions in their industry. Despite everything you read here, book publishers are the part of the publishing industry that has weathered the digital transition the best from a financial standpoint (I think that's a fact) and from an artistic standpoint (which I know is an opinion).