Why e-books, e-audiobooks could be harder to snag at your local library

[leebase]

Originally Posted by John F

Same with a pbooks. Once a pbooks is out in the wild, anyone can make unlimited number of copies.

Come on...you KNOW there's a HUGE difference. But let's pretend there wasn't. Even if you really could create copies of paper books....you can't distribute them globally in a heart beat, cost free like you can an ebook.

Originally Posted by John F

Rhetoric. I'm guessing not a single library in my state has 10,000,000 books. Never mind 10,000,000 ebooks.

The point is that there are FAR more books available at any library that someone can read in a lifetime. It's no hardship whatsoever that the most popular recent released books have a waiting list.

Originally Posted by John F

What is needed is a more reasonable model for libraries.

We have a reasonable model. A library buys a certain amount of books. People wait for the most popular titles. Meanwhile there are lots of others one can read.

Originally Posted by John F

Let's not forget why we have copyright in the U.S. If the authors don't want to uphold their end of the agreement, ...

Books are made available for a price to libraries. Same as always. Libraries do not have infinite budgets. Same as always.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by leebase

Books are made available for a price to libraries. Same as always.

Not quite the same as always.
For paper books, libraries can buy normal copies just like anyone else, and pay normal prices. And they can can sell copies they don't need to recoup some of the costs.
For eBooks, libraries have to pay more than anyone else, may not be able to buy books immediately, and can't recoup any of that cost later.
Not to say that either of these things are unreasonable restrictions, but they are clear differences.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Not quite the same as always.
For paper books, libraries can buy normal copies just like anyone else, and pay normal prices. And they can can sell copies they don't need to recoup some of the costs.
For eBooks, libraries have to pay more than anyone else, may not be able to buy books immediately, and can't recoup any of that cost later.
Not to say that either of these things are unreasonable restrictions, but they are clear differences.

There HAS to be differences. All the differences aren't bad. An ebook never degrades, never gets someone's cheeto dust or boogers on the pages, never has someone dog ear the pages or break the spine.

From the libraries pov....ebooks take up no space. No human intervention is needed to check out, check in and reshelf.

But the central complaint of the article was a popular book that had a waiting list. There is nothing new about that. When Harry Potter books were release, no library bought enough paper copies to satisfy the demand without waiting lists.

There is no "pressing societal need" for new release books to be instantly available to everybody without restriction...for free at the library.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by leebase

There HAS to be differences. All the differences aren't bad. An ebook never degrades, never gets someone's cheeto dust or boogers on the pages, never has someone dog ear the pages or break the spine.

You talk about everything here except the complaint that this thread is about: how the new models for ebooks for libraries are more restrictive and expensive than the ones before. If you want people to stop complaining, you're going to have to convince them that fewer ebooks and longer waits are a good thing for them. Good luck with that!

[John F]

The point is that there are FAR more books available at any library that someone can read in a lifetime.

Why is that a point? The point isn't to have ebooks, it is to have ebooks that people want to read.

It's no hardship whatsoever that the most popular recent released books have a waiting list.

It isn't just about wait list. It is also about recurring costs. Why should a book that is going to be read once every couple of years cost the library $45 every two years.

We have a reasonable model. A library buys a certain amount of books. People wait for the most popular titles. Meanwhile there are lots of others one can read.

When that "certain amount of books" approaches zero, it isn't a reasonable model.

And again, it is not about can read, it is about wanting to read.

Books are made available for a price to libraries. Same as always. ...

Come on. You know it is not the same as always.

[leebase]

It is the same as always. People want free stuff. They don't care how or why stuff should be given them for free...just that they want pretty much everything....for free.

There is a reason ebooks are given term limits that physical books don't have. eBooks never deteriorate. ebooks take up no space....not even from a data perspective...book files are tiny. You only need one tiny file per book. You literally could have every book ever created...on a thumb drive.

Libraries already manage which books they keep depending on reader demand. They might buy 50 or 100 copies of a new Harry Potter book, but after the initial hoopla, they won't keep them all. Even though they have already paid for them and get next to nothing for selling them. They get rid of them for the shelf space.

Remember encyclopedias? Many middle class and above families owned a set. Now you put the encyclopedia online and EVERYONE can read with no need for books. But how are we to fund the creation and maintenance of encyclopedias? Basically - we don't.

Publishers wouldn't have a prayer of staying in business if libraries did to them what the internet has done to the encyclopedia market. Each library buying one copy of a book and letting any number of people to read it at the same time, in perpetuity...would be the end of commercial publishing.

But...at least you'd get your freebie....so there's that

[leebase]

Originally Posted by rkomar

You talk about everything here except the complaint that this thread is about: how the new models for ebooks for libraries are more restrictive and expensive than the ones before. If you want people to stop complaining, you're going to have to convince them that fewer ebooks and longer waits are a good thing for them. Good luck with that!

There is no stopping complaining. People want free stuff and couldn't care less how it's free, as long as it's free to them.

Don't want to wait? Buy the book/ebook. Don't want to buy it? Read something else. And wait. This is no hardship.

[tomsem]

It seems to me that not all public library systems are created equally. Some are well funded, others are not. Priorities will also vary depending on the specific population of people using the library. Therefore we can disagree about how serious a problem this is and the degree to which publisher policies have any effect on things, and of course, what our individual experience is.

Personally, I’m very satisfied with my library borrowing experience as it is. It is true that many titles I’m otherwise interested in are not available for digital lending as publishers do not make them available or affordable for libraries to purchase, but I approach it as ‘glass is half full’ rather than ‘glass is half empty’.

[Deskisamess]

The more library books I borrow, the more value I get for the part of my property tax that goes towards the library. After the levy passed earlier this year, it meant my yearly cost is about $100, out of the total $1,600 in property taxes we pay per year.

I borrow on average 10-12 per month. So, it isn't free, but less than a buck per book. This doesn't count videos or audio books, that I also sometimes borrow.

[GeoffR]

Is a wait of 135 days to read a particular book for free really so bad, when there are plenty of other books available immediately to read for free while I wait, and the book is available to buy if I really need it immediately?

I have to wait 120 days for my swedes to grow (the packet says 90 days, but my garden doesn't get enough sun.) It's not like I have to go hungry for 120 days while I wait, if I have planned well there will be other things I planted earlier that will be ready now, and if I really get desperate I can buy some from the supermarket.

[John F]

Originally Posted by leebase

It is the same as always. People want free stuff. They don't care how or why stuff should be given them for free...just that they want pretty much everything....for free.

I'm not sure where you are coming from. I haven't heard anyone in this thread say they want it for free.

... Publishers wouldn't have a prayer of staying in business if libraries did to them what the internet has done to the encyclopedia market. Each library buying one copy of a book and letting any number of people to read it at the same time, in perpetuity...would be the end of commercial publishing

And your point is? Has any library done this? Proposed doing it?

If you stripped the DRM from your ebooks, made them available to everyone at the time, would the publishers go out of business? Are you going to do it?

It seems as though you are saying things just to say them.

Libraries can get free ebooks from the public domain, for other ebooks, they are willing to pay a reasonable price.

I saw on another site where the average checkout per year is 1.4 times. So 2.8 every 2 years. So you are saying that an average pbook deteriorates every 2.8 checkouts?

[frahse]

Originally Posted by leebase

Pretty much. An ebook doesn't wear out. An ebook file is limitless. One file is all it takes for everyone in the entire world to read.

An ebook doesn't need to be dusted either.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by frahse

An ebook doesn't need to be dusted either.

Your library dusts it's books? Fancy

[frahse]

Originally Posted by leebase

Your library dusts it's books? Fancy

Necessary for the old libraries which can have books a hundred or more years old. One guide was to run a cleaning cycle for the entire collection every 5 to 8 years.

Now days, we have easier ways to prevent dust and mildew..

First a clean filtered air supply. (The real change in the last 50 years.)
Floors totally cleaned every day so as not to have dirt and dust to kick around. Mats at the entrances to catch the dirt.
Vacuuming floors, shelves and books.

Many of the older books, at least, are copied to digital media.

I remember librarians, usually young interns, dusting each shelf with a feather duster or nowadays it would be microfiber perhaps.

See Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Wash.../dp/B07PN4QJD4

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by frahse

Necessary for the old libraries which can have books a hundred or more years old. One guide was to run a cleaning cycle for the entire collection every 5 to 8 years.

Now days, we have easier ways to prevent dust and mildew..

First a clean filtered air supply. (The real change in the last 50 years.)
Floors totally cleaned every day so as not to have dirt and dust to kick around. Mats at the entrances to catch the dirt.
Vacuuming floors, shelves and books.

Many of the older books, at least, are copied to digital media.

I remember librarians, usually young interns, dusting each shelf with a feather duster or nowadays it would be microfiber perhaps.

See Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Wash.../dp/B07PN4QJD4

I'm now curious as to the cleaning routine of my city's library warehouse (their solution to maintaining less cluttered library branches with plenty of room for computers while still keeping the less popular scholarly books available through the hold system).

As for the main topic, believing that it is reasonable to licence ebooks on a term basis to libraries rather then selling a permanent licence is not the same as believing that the terms and rents that are currently being charged are reasonable. I think that the cost of an ebook licence for a library should be no more (over the lifetime of the licence) then the cost of the equivalent paper book (over the expected lifetime of a book of that type).