Quote:
Originally Posted by mitford13
Just speculating, but I wonder if this might be part of the ongoing ‘discussions’ between the libraries/ALA and publishers about licensing terms.
|
We'll see if others follow. But I'd think that the one publishers would have noticed first would have been Brooklyn.
Another speculation could be that there wasn't enough revenue generated to make the exercise a net benefit to Philadelphians. As far as charging more than Brooklyn for fewer titles, they might have thought that idea unfair to remaining out of town patrons.
Another speculation is that, without any threats from publishers, their lawyer nixed it out of an abundance of caution.
Another remote membership practice is their allowing Pennsylvanians outside Philadelphia to borrow for free. While this is almost universal practice, in the state, for paper books, some suburban counties do not practice reciprocity with their eBook collections.
I wonder if Brooklyn will respond to decreased competition by raising their price. If I was on their board, I would
EDITED: I just realized that raising the price may have issues. Profitable borrowers, who only take out a few titles a year, would drop out, leaving you with those who borrow so frequently as to make profitability impossible, even at a much higher price.