Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Nobody is saying "using the library is wrong". We are saying "the amount you pay in taxes....YOU pay....doesn't cover the cost of the books YOU read". You know...unless perhaps you only check out one or two books a year.
It's not bad. It's not wrong. But in the context of "how much of a hardship is it for the publishers to put a time window on when books are available for libraries"...the answer really is "it's a big nothing burger".
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I just checked my town's website for a town budget breakdown, and 6% of that goes to the library and library/recreational services. Assuming that it is split half and half, (the only other free recreational service we have in town is a senior center - every other recreational service costs money to use) that means that I am paying $120 for library services. After the windowing period, Macmillan charges $60 for 52 lends, so that each lend costs $1.15. At that rate, I could borrow 104 ebooks in a year, and still be *just under* the amount I am paying in taxes to support my library. By my math, that's a bit more than one or two books a year.
Now...I know that the library has other costs besides buying books, and I also know that not everyone in my town pays as much per year in property tax as I do. (there are some households that pay less, but many more households that pay more...sometimes LOTS more. It aint cheap to live in CT.)
I also know, however, that most of the people in my town are like me, and don't use the library that often. When my children were small, we were there at least once a week, sometimes more often...but they're grown now, and don't live here anymore. I don't generally use the library anymore because I prefer to own my books (and I can afford to).
I go by the main town library multiple times per week, and the parking lot usually only has 3 or 4 cars in it at most. The other, smaller library in town's parking lot usually only has one car in it when it's open...that of the librarian.
There could be lots of people in town who are using Overdrive and e-reading books from the library, but I know that out of the people that I know with e-readers in town, none of them do so.
So...I just assume that my portion of the library taxes are going to those who pay less in property tax than I do, but use the library on a regular basis.
With all of that being said, however, I do kind of agree that only allowing one copy to be sold to the library for the first two months after publication is really not that big of a deal. If they were only allowing one copy to be sold forever, that would be a different thing, but having to wait to read a book is not the same as not being able to read a book.
Shari