Online petition over library ebook embargo

[leebase]

The money doesn’t just buy books. You’ll find that your library spends less than a third of its budget on “content”. The building, maintenance, salaries, utilities eat up the lion's share of the budget.

Even the $350 isn’t paying for one person's use. That’s one person's taxable share. Far more people pay taxes than actually use the library.

The library is a publicly funded service. Why shouldn’t anyone of the public enjoy it?

Just don’t be confused that your taxes pay for your use. Any regular user of a library is assuredly receiving a subsidized benefit.

And why is that of any concern? It really isn’t unless “supporting the art” is on your list of things you’d like to do. Going to the library is supporting yourself....buying the books is supporting the art.

I was a library user for many years...decades and never paid. Now I pay and never use. I am happy to subsidize the library with my taxes to support literacy in my community for all...needy or not.

Even libraries make the point I’m trying to make. They don’t say “what libraries pay for books is a nice sum for author's”. No. It’s that the sales of books go UP when they are included in libraries. The exposure drives sales. SALES. Not “check outs”. To support the authors, buy the books. Not 1/50th of a share of a book.

[Flaneurette]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sarcasm, I hope.
Few people are that easily swayed outside of RPGs.

Definitely hyperbole

[ps67]

Originally Posted by Tomk2

About 20 years ago, I lived in an unincorporated neighborhood on the edge of town. I went to the library to get a card, and they looked up my address, then informed me I had to pay about $350 for the library card. Since my property was not assessed the library portion of property taxes, I had to pay it myself if I wanted to use the library. I left without a card, because there was no way I could possibly benefit from paying that much for the library, and I didn't ask how many years the fees would cover
5 years later, I moved to a home that was part of the town and got a library card. In the fifteen years I lived there, I doubt the purchase price of any books I checked out would have totaled $350 for the entire fifteen year period. Only the last few years had digital downloads available.

I think that libraries spend more per capita (the number of residents they serve) on books than the general population does on themselves. Only high use patrons of a library get a value for their tax dollars. Think of the many who are taxed for little return, other than the satisfaction that a library is deemed an important facet of infrastructure. What is the effective use of any particular library branch? One out of ten local residents use it more than once a year? One out of a hundred? I don't know. But my local branch is being converted to a high school library, since so few of the local residents use it (and it is on the High School campus).

edit:
Digital downloads is the only thing that generated increased interest in the library by adults, and I think library managers realize this and want to serve more of their residents to remain useful. But libraries are terribly inneficient uses of "book dollars." 67% of the budget goes to staff, 21% for "other" expenses including providing computers and internet, and the smallest part of the budget is 11% for the collection of materials. http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactshee...aryfactsheet04

so of the $350 they wanted to charge me less than $39 would have been for buying books. Is eleven percent of your library taxes more than what your local population spends on books themselves? Publishers probably wish they had a bigger portion of the library budget.

And all of what I posted above doesn't change the fact that I agree with you about the blackout period for libraries is not a big deal, except to libraries who are trying to maintain relevance to the community.

The library I attended for many years, since when I was a child until a few Years ago, is free for everyone, also if they don't live in the town or in the region or in Italy. Now I live elsewhere, in another town, but I still own the card and I use it for digital lending (it uses ADE, 14 days for a ebook, not more than 3 in a month while for pbook 30 days and not more than 3 books togeter without a monthly limit).

And about publishers: they should not fear libraries: all that increases the percentage of readers is good for them: a child that attends a library when he will be adult may be he will buy books.

[CRussel]

Not sure if folks saw the King County Library System's response to MacMillian -- a boycott on buying their eBooks.

As for the pragmatic side, Rosenblum explained that King County has pledged to readers to limit the wait time for any title to around 3 months. “Not allowing us to purchase multiple copies of an e-book for two months artificially lengthens the queue, triggering more of the same title to be purchased than would have occurred if we had been allowed to buy for the first two months,” she explains. “With an ever-increasing demand to buy a wide variety of digital titles, we do not think this is the best use of public funds.”

The King County Library System is one of the largest and very best in the country, "logging more than 4.8 million checkouts of e-books and digital audio in 2018."

[ottdmk]

The petition has gone international. I got an e-mail from my library asking me to sign it, so I did. (If you look at the site you'll see that a good percentage of the recent signatures are from Ottawa.)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Not sure if folks saw the King County Library System's response to MacMillian -- a boycott on buying their eBooks.

This seems to me a textbook example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. I can't imagine it's in the best interest of their borrowers, or that the borrowers will be happy about this. Wouldn't it make more sense to start the three-month waiting period at the end of the two-month hiatus on buying?

But then, I've not been able to get exercised about this. Library books in high demand require waiting. Read something else in the meantime. I think this has distracted libraries from more pressing issues myself involving licenses myself.

[Tomk2]

In those two months of embargo, a very long wait list will form for the single copy they have. Then their buying algorithm will say buy 15 copies when the embargo is over, when they might have needed only 8 or 10 copies from day one. I dont see any reason to wait a year to acquire an embargoed book, other than to spite the publisher. But I do realize that libraries need to stay relevant and important to their community = financial patrons. If they become someplace where you can only access old media, how many taxpayers will be excited to increase library funding?

In effect, the publishers are being spiteful. It's too easy to access the digital library, If you had to work harder to get and return a library book they are ok with it, but this easy digital borrowing offends them.

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[John F]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Not sure if folks saw the King County Library System's response to MacMillian -- a boycott on buying their eBooks.

...

In the end, If they don't believe that it is the best use of public funds, than use the funds for other ebooks.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Tomk2

In effect, the publishers are being spiteful. It's too easy to access the digital library, If you had to work harder to get and return a library book they are ok with it, but this easy digital borrowing offends them.

I don't understand where all this misguided "it is too easy to borrow from the library" is coming from. How is buying more complicated? You never had to leave the house to buy an ebook.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I don't understand where all this misguided "it is too easy to borrow from the library" is coming from. How is buying more complicated? You never had to leave the house to buy an ebook.

Obviously spite has nothing to do with it. They ran an experiment and their internal numbers told them they sold more books by embargoing ebooks at libraries for a few months. Pure economics. As long as their sales figures show the results they expect, they will likely continue.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Obviously spite has nothing to do with it. They ran an experiment and their internal numbers told them they sold more books by embargoing ebooks at libraries for a few months. Pure economics. As long as their sales figures show the results they expect, they will likely continue.

I understand the logic behind the embargo. The logic behind "libraries are too easy to borrow from" I don't. Libraries are a big hassle compared to immediately buying.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I understand the logic behind the embargo. The logic behind "libraries are too easy to borrow from" I don't. Libraries are a big hassle compared to immediately buying.

I understand that once you get everything set up and get your process in place, it's fairly easy. You don't have to go to the library each time you borrow a book. It's a bit like using Calibre in that regard.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I understand the logic behind the embargo. The logic behind "libraries are too easy to borrow from" I don't. Libraries are a big hassle compared to immediately buying.

eBook lending has become pretty much as easy as buying. You don't even have to have a local library as you can become a member of just about any library remotely.

Once you setup...you browse and borrow, read and return ebooks via an app.

That's why the libraries want new release ebooks. People are demanding the latest, because they want to just check out the books from their library app rather than buy them.

[Tomk2]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I understand the logic behind the embargo. The logic behind "libraries are too easy to borrow from" I don't. Libraries are a big hassle compared to immediately buying.

Publishers describe ebook borrowing as "frictionless." You dont have to go to the library to pick it up, you dont have to go there to return it, you dont even have to remember to return it.

A paper book is not being embargoed because the publishers believe all that "friction" created by having to go to the library twice is enough of a deterrent to encourage sales instead of borrowing.

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[leebase]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I don't understand where all this misguided "it is too easy to borrow from the library" is coming from. How is buying more complicated? You never had to leave the house to buy an ebook.

I think "borrowing an ebook is as easy as buying one" is the point the publishers are talking about.