The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Rant: Overdrive's stupid licensing system. A book I had on hold ran out of licenses, and I have no way to know whether the library will bother to reacquire it or not.

[Aleron Ives]

Blame the publishers, not OverDrive. They're the ones who insist on the licensing system. Imagine if libraries had to re-buy paper books over and over in order to continue loaning them to patrons.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Rant: Overdrive's stupid licensing system. A book I had on hold ran out of licenses, and I have no way to know whether the library will bother to reacquire it or not.

Is this really an Overdrive problem or a publisher license problem? AFAIK it's the publishers that wanted these terrible terms. Shouldn't be allowed IMO.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Blame the publishers, not OverDrive. They're the ones who insist on the licensing system. Imagine if libraries had to re-buy paper books over and over in order to continue loaning them to patrons.

Uh! They did.
Because they wore out to the point of not being easily repairable.
My school library has a pot of glue, binding tape and a clear(ish) tape to patch minor tears (Not cellotape)
I think the difference was that that was after years or hundreds of reads. Now days, products are designed to fail so you frequently need to buy another.

What is crazier, is some modern stuff really does last better with little or no service.
Electronics (TV, Audio) now just runs. In the old days, Tubes (valves to you across the pond), got weak, noisy or burnt out. My cars engine block has gone 100K without needing machining just to extract the pistons.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

AFAIK it's the publishers that wanted these terrible terms. Shouldn't be allowed IMO.

The biggest pain is that if the publisher wants a limit to the number of checkouts, that's fine with me, but then stop attaching the total checkout count to the number of books "purchased".

In other words, the library should be able to purchase 200 checkouts, and those checkouts can be serial or simultaneous. Once the 200 checkouts are gone, the book is no longer available.

This would solve the biggest problem that small libraries have: matching supply to demand with little wasted money.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Rant: Overdrive's stupid licensing system. A book I had on hold ran out of licenses, and I have no way to know whether the library will bother to reacquire it or not.

I don't mean to ruin your rant, but maybe try emailing the library? Or if it is a local library, stop by.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Rant: Overdrive's stupid licensing system. A book I had on hold ran out of licenses, and I have no way to know whether the library will bother to reacquire it or not.

You would have to put in a request and hope the library gets another license.

It's the fault of the publisher limiting how many times an eBook can be borrowed.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by theducks

Uh! They did.
Because they wore out to the point of not being easily repairable.

Yeah, but paper books don't automatically crumble into ashes immediately after it's returned the 50th time.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Yeah, but paper books don't automatically crumble into ashes immediately after it's returned the 50th time.

I do understand the limits on borrows for ebooks, though the number of borrows does seem pretty low.

I can also understand the limit to how many customers can borrow at the same time. If a library had 250 borrows with no waiting on the latest celebrity biography that has a shelf life of three days, who would buy the book?

[Renate]

Any idea what licenses cost? At one point I thought that they just bought a book. That's how it used to work, didn't it? You could buy a brand new (paper) book and give it to the library, right?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Renate

Any idea what licenses cost? At one point I thought that they just bought a book. That's how it used to work, didn't it? You could buy a brand new (paper) book and give it to the library, right?

Libraries can buy paper books on the open market and pubishers have no right to interfere with that. But for ebooks they have to deal directly with the publisher or authorised representative and they have little or no bargaining leverage.

[Renate]

So ebooks are a step backwards?

In the old days a library just had to decide if a gifted book was worth the bother of cataloging and shelf space.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Libraries can buy paper books on the open market and pubishers have no right to interfere with that. But for ebooks they have to deal directly with the publisher or authorised representative and they have little or no bargaining leverage.

And they pay much higher than retail price for the privilege of being allowed to lend the ebook to the library patrons.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Libraries can buy paper books on the open market and pubishers have no right to interfere with that. But for ebooks they have to deal directly with the publisher or authorised representative and they have little or no bargaining leverage.

Originally Posted by Renate

So ebooks are a step backwards?

In the old days a library just had to decide if a gifted book was worth the bother of cataloging and shelf space.

Both of those are the USA.

A small percentage of the world's population.

Not true in many countries.


Some countries they can only buy library licensed edition / price and must pay a per loan royalties, that ultimately goes to author or author's estate if in copyright. Also only central purchasing.

[Renate]

So, ballpark number, what's a single read cost a library?