Quote:
Originally Posted by MGlitch
Ok so lets review
Macmillan restricts the purchase of *multiple* ebook licenses from libraries for the first 90 days of release. They can still purchase a license for those 90 and however many licenses they wish after the 90.
This does not limit the kinds of books the library has, old vs new, popular vs unpopular. It simply limits within a relatively small timeframe, the number of copies of new releases.
The library in question decides 'nah we wont buy any new ebooks from you'
Using your example, those taxpayers are going to get a whole lot madder with the library's decision than the publishers decision.
Sure the library has the right to try and get the better deal out of the publisher. But the figures which others have quoted show that the libraries need the publishers more than the publishers seem to need the libraries. So making power plays by not buying books is a rather questionable move.
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Sometimes it comes down to who can sell their narrative the best. Certainly, there is the any stick to beat a publisher with crowd who are cheering on the library.
Looking at the Atlanta-Fulton County library budget, the over all budget is some $27 M with $2 M of that for book acquisition. Apparently, a fairly new thing is to lease new books, i.e. rather than buy a bunch of books, the libraries lease most of their copies of the latest buzz book and once the buzz dies down send most of those copies back to the leasing company and only keep a few copies for the permanent collection. This is for hard copy books.
I do wonder given that libraries are only 1.2 percent of the publishers business, how many ebooks we are talking about. I suspect we aren't talking large numbers. It could very well be that we are talking about very small numbers of ebooks and patrons.