Library E-Book Lending Poses Rising Problem for Publishing Industry

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by leebase

Bingo! We have a winner. This particular hubbub is nothing about reading for the underprivileged in society. This is middle class "give me my books for free" (I know, you paid taxes....ergo you are entitled to all brand new titles....now)

That's not really what I meant when I typed what you quoted. I said all the things I felt. You're free to say the things you like. Just don't presume to make them my thoughts as well.

[leebase]

I agreed with you. Then wrote my own opinion. I never said "DiapDealer says" then put my words

[DiapDealer]

Fair enough.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by darryl

You are of course correct, except perhaps for your insistence on Deeds. My concern is, as I posted earlier, that this may in fact play into the publishers hands. As I also posted earlier, I'm simply not convinced that Publishers need or want their books in libraries. The primary reason would, I presume, be sales revenue from libraries. I'm not sure just how significant such sales are.

Yes, giving library money to more supportive publishers *might* play into the hands of the library-hostile.
So?
They wanted ebook agency, too.
They got it. And a 25% (and counting) drop in ebook sales. With no matching increase in pbook revenues. (The trivial pre-inflation boosts they tout are from audio. Wait until that plateaus.)

If libraries really provide 15% of their digital revenues and digital is 20% or so, it only means ~3% of total. But since their annual profit *growth* is barely 1% before inflation...

Give them what they want and watch what happens next.

I doubt this will be a wakeup call to libraries...
...but they need one.
The way corporate publishing works, if they cave in now, everybody else will follow suit.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

so I donated a few hundred hard backs that I had the replace with ebooks and were just sitting in a closet. This included mostly well known authors and books, including a complete set of Harry Potter hard backs. They were all sold to a book discounter

My library does the same thing when I've donated books. After reading here about all the rigmarole they go through with publishers for ebooks I'm wondering if there are similar constraints with print books; i.e., that they're required to buy the books from the publishers.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

My library does the same thing when I've donated books. After reading here about all the rigmarole they go through with publishers for ebooks I'm wondering if there are similar constraints with print books; i.e., that they're required to buy the books from the publishers.

No, in most cases it's simply a matter of the labor involved to add them to the collection instead of selling them. A lot of libraries don't have the shelf space to accommodate many donations, so they would have to be sorted by hand, inspected, and then those that pass have to be prepared... It's a lot of work, and work is money spent, whereas sold books are money that can be turned into library resources and new books that are already deemed suitable to add to the collection.

Some libraries have just stopped accepting donations altogether because they simply can't accommodate them - instead they often refer donators to their local Friends of the Library, which usually is responsible for fund raising, including book sales. And some libraries still have to deal with people dropping off boxes of books in the middle of the night like reverse thieves.

While there may be some great, worthy books in some donation piles, the majority of them just are not and it simply isn't worth the time and trouble to deal with them. (I recall one librarian's tale of a man who insisted that the hundreds of outdated tech manuals he wanted to donate just HAD to be made available in the library.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

While there may be some great, worthy books in some donation piles, the majority of them just are not and it simply isn't worth the time and trouble to deal with them.

There's only so many copies of THE GOLDFINCH a library can stock.
Book hoarders are nowhere as common as many believe. They are vastly outnumbered by swappers and sellers/disposers.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

And some libraries still have to deal with people dropping off boxes of books in the middle of the night like reverse thieves.

Great phrase, which I'm appropriating.

It's a pet peeve of mine, people who pass along their trash in the forum of a "donation." Unreadable books at the library, unwearable clothes in the Salvation Army bin, unworking junk at the church rummage sale, and so forth. Getting rid of trash can be difficult and/or expensive, so they make it someone else's problem, and those who can least afford it, too.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by issybird

Great phrase, which I'm appropriating.

It's a pet peeve of mine, people who pass along their trash in the forum of a "donation." Unreadable books at the library, unwearable clothes in the Salvation Army bin, unworking junk at the church rummage sale, and so forth. Getting rid of trash can be difficult and/or expensive, so they make it someone else's problem, and those who can least afford it, too.

I think some of them just have "quality blindness", too (hence old toasters marked $10 at a garage sale, because "but it works!"), and I know a few who have their quality analysis distorted by their aversion to waste. I don't know how many times I've had to explain to a friend of mine that, YES, I'm throwing out my old clothes because if they were still usable, I would be keeping them for myself. Donation is not always the right thing to do. (My favorite pair of jeans is at least 12 years old. I hate buying clothes so I keep them till they're dead.)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I think some of them just have "quality blindness", too (hence old toasters marked $10 at a garage sale, because "but it works!"), and I know a few who have their quality analysis distorted by their aversion to waste. I don't know how many times I've had to explain to a friend of mine that, YES, I'm throwing out my old clothes because if they were still usable, I would be keeping them for myself. Donation is not always the right thing to do. (My favorite pair of jeans is at least 12 years old. I hate buying clothes so I keep them till they're dead.)

The donation that isn't a donation.

The dichotomy always startles me. If you asked the person with the toaster how much they'd pay for it, you'd get a puzzled or even offended glance. Because the answer, of course, is a buck or two at the most and most likely nothing. Why people think their trash has value to others when it has none to themselves is beyond me.

I don't like buying clothes, either.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by leebase

Bingo! We have a winner. This particular hubbub is nothing about reading for the underprivileged in society. This is middle class "give me my books for free" (I know, you paid taxes....ergo you are entitled to all brand new titles....now)

Once again, you are ignorant about what technology lower-income people have access to. All someone needs in order to access library ebooks is a phone. Smartphones are a necessity when someone is job-seeking/homeless/in casual employment/etc. They're not a luxury item.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by meeera

Once again, you are ignorant about what technology lower-income people have access to. All someone needs in order to access library ebooks is a phone. Smartphones are a necessity when someone is job-seeking/homeless/in casual employment/etc. They're not a luxury item.

And you forgot to mention that a prepaid cell phone is literally cheaper than a landline. I am not even sure why they still try to bundle cable/internet/landline together when the "landline" is connected through the internet. Who you gonna call when your internet goes out???

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I think some of them just have "quality blindness", too (hence old toasters marked $10 at a garage sale, because "but it works!"), and I know a few who have their quality analysis distorted by their aversion to waste. I don't know how many times I've had to explain to a friend of mine that, YES, I'm throwing out my old clothes because if they were still usable, I would be keeping them for myself. Donation is not always the right thing to do. (My favorite pair of jeans is at least 12 years old. I hate buying clothes so I keep them till they're dead.)

A lot of people value stuff by what they paid when it was new.
No concept of depreciation.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

And you forgot to mention that a prepaid cell phone is literally cheaper than a landline. I am not even sure why they still try to bundle cable/internet/landline together when the "landline" is connected through the internet. Who you gonna call when your internet goes out???

I just had that happen.
They even have a nice website option dispensing the usual (useless) connectivity debugging step by step guide.

In the end (I used my cellphone hotspot) it recommended calling the helpline.

After a half hour wait, I got to a nice tech, who ran his checklist and ended up telling me to go swap the router and set up a call in the evening to verify it worked.

He did flag the swap in their system so they wouldn't charge me the equipment swap fee. +1
He even called back that night. +1

I can't wait for SpaceX and Amazon to get their low latency low cost satellite internet going.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

No, in most cases it's simply a matter of the labor involved to add them to the collection instead of selling them. A lot of libraries don't have the shelf space to accommodate many donations, so they would have to be sorted by hand, inspected, and then those that pass have to be prepared... It's a lot of work, and work is money spent, whereas sold books are money that can be turned into library resources and new books that are already deemed suitable to add to the collection.

Some libraries have just stopped accepting donations altogether because they simply can't accommodate them - instead they often refer donators to their local Friends of the Library, which usually is responsible for fund raising, including book sales. And some libraries still have to deal with people dropping off boxes of books in the middle of the night like reverse thieves.

While there may be some great, worthy books in some donation piles, the majority of them just are not and it simply isn't worth the time and trouble to deal with them. (I recall one librarian's tale of a man who insisted that the hundreds of outdated tech manuals he wanted to donate just HAD to be made available in the library.)

Many libraries are now in a situation where they need money more than books. Their mission has changed over the years. Many libraries have become as much of a community outreach center as a quiet place to read books.

I would suggest that part of this is that books are much more common now than they were even 60 years ago. To give an example, To Kill A Mockingbird was written in 1960 and was the #3 best seller from that year. The initial run was 5000 books, of which they expected to sell between 2 to 4 thousand. Many of the initial run were sold to libraries. One sees all sorts of estimates of how many copies it sold it's first year, but estimates at the time were around 200,000 copies, plus book club sales. Now, best sellers have print runs in the millions.