Quote:
Originally Posted by Fbone
My library has a banner on their website announcing that starting November 1st they will no longer purchase ebooks published by Macmillan.
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This seems like the library is shooting themselves in the foot. And I'd think everyone in this thread would agree that this is a bad decision, unless they care to argue its the library playing chicken with the publishers. In which case I'd think the publisher would win.
Look at it from the publishers view they have the following
Library Patrons who only ever borrow books (nothing can be done about this group they'll just borrow a different book)
Library Patrons who would wait 'x' period of time before buying (obvious solution is inflating the wait time)
Library Patrons who borrow or buy on a whim (price changes, or wait times may help influence them who knows)
The library by not buying Macmillan books has removed the choice for two of those three groups, and 100% of the people who Macmillan wants to influence into buying the book.
Yes there's the chance for readers to try to boycott Macmillan to change their policy which I'm sure is the goal of the library in question, but statistically most people end up breaking these sorts of boycotts over time. They may not intend to, but as time passes and things don't change, and you don't have other sources (which you wouldn't for a particular author), you end up giving in.