Online petition over library ebook embargo

[Deskisamess]

We get this message on some book holds:

Some copies of this title belong to specific member libraries, and their users are given priority for holds on those copies. For this reason, users may jump forward or move backward on the wait list, so we can't accurately estimate wait time.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by shalym

Well, technically, if the corporate officers act against the best interest of the corporation they are also acting against the best interests of the stockholders, since doing so will eventually lead to the closing of the company.

Shari

And I would agree with you on that, but it's the stockholders who have standing to sue. I happen to have a very different view of how corporations should act, but for my view to be put into place, there would have to be a change in either the way the law reads, or the way the law is currently being implemented/decided in the courts.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Catlady

As reported last month in the New York Times:


Full NYT article here.

Business Roundtable statement here.

And it's entirely possible that those who actually do that may face shareholder lawsuits. What people say in public and what they do in reality can be two different things. Keep in mind that the term "shareholder value" does not mean profit above all else, though numerous shareholders have sued corporate officers because the officers didn't maximize profits. It also doesn't mean that there will be an automatic lawsuit if corporate officers spend money on such things.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by leebase

Nobody is saying "using the library is wrong". We are saying "the amount you pay in taxes....YOU pay....doesn't cover the cost of the books YOU read". You know...unless perhaps you only check out one or two books a year.

It's not bad. It's not wrong. But in the context of "how much of a hardship is it for the publishers to put a time window on when books are available for libraries"...the answer really is "it's a big nothing burger".

I just checked my town's website for a town budget breakdown, and 6% of that goes to the library and library/recreational services. Assuming that it is split half and half, (the only other free recreational service we have in town is a senior center - every other recreational service costs money to use) that means that I am paying $120 for library services. After the windowing period, Macmillan charges $60 for 52 lends, so that each lend costs $1.15. At that rate, I could borrow 104 ebooks in a year, and still be *just under* the amount I am paying in taxes to support my library. By my math, that's a bit more than one or two books a year.

Now...I know that the library has other costs besides buying books, and I also know that not everyone in my town pays as much per year in property tax as I do. (there are some households that pay less, but many more households that pay more...sometimes LOTS more. It aint cheap to live in CT.)

I also know, however, that most of the people in my town are like me, and don't use the library that often. When my children were small, we were there at least once a week, sometimes more often...but they're grown now, and don't live here anymore. I don't generally use the library anymore because I prefer to own my books (and I can afford to).

I go by the main town library multiple times per week, and the parking lot usually only has 3 or 4 cars in it at most. The other, smaller library in town's parking lot usually only has one car in it when it's open...that of the librarian.

There could be lots of people in town who are using Overdrive and e-reading books from the library, but I know that out of the people that I know with e-readers in town, none of them do so.

So...I just assume that my portion of the library taxes are going to those who pay less in property tax than I do, but use the library on a regular basis.

With all of that being said, however, I do kind of agree that only allowing one copy to be sold to the library for the first two months after publication is really not that big of a deal. If they were only allowing one copy to be sold forever, that would be a different thing, but having to wait to read a book is not the same as not being able to read a book.

Shari

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by shalym

I just checked my town's website for a town budget breakdown, and 6% of that goes to the library and library/recreational services. Assuming that it is split half and half, (the only other free recreational service we have in town is a senior center - every other recreational service costs money to use)

Shari

Recreational services could also mean parks and other public areas of rest. Unless of course your town differentiates any park(s) it has. Also the funds for any sort of festivities your town might put on.

I don’t expect you’d be able to get a full breakdown, just pointing this out since it’d potentially deduct from the figures you had.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Recreational services could also mean parks and other public areas of rest. Unless of course your town differentiates any park(s) it has. Also the funds for any sort of festivities your town might put on.

I don’t expect you’d be able to get a full breakdown, just pointing this out since it’d potentially deduct from the figures you had.

So I looked a little further into the budget than just the pie chart showing percentages, and I found actual numbers. It turns out that out of that 6% of the budget related to library/recreational services, the library is the biggest part.

Shari

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

When that fails, and it will, they'll drop ebooks altogether.

Now there's a bold prediction. Would you care to put a date on it?

Here's my not-bold prediction: No publisher, with more than 1 percent of the advance-paying narrative book marketplace, will drop eBooks altogether in my lifetime (I'm 64).

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by leebase

No? Why are the NYT's best sellers new books?

Is this supposed to be a trick question?

Here is a question for you:

Do you seriously believe that the books on the NYT bestseller list are the best selling books?

Sure, why not?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Is this supposed to be a trick question?

Here is a question for you:

Do you seriously believe that the books on the NYT bestseller list are the best selling books?

Sure, why not?

Actually they publicly announced the NYT list is a promotional tool *only* for recent releases back in august 2015 after a kids' book a year old, through growing word of mouth, hit the list for several weeks.

Paul hopes that the new lists will help draw potential readers to new books. “I think in this new reconfiguration, you’ll see a lot more newly published hardcover fiction,” she said.

Easiest to find spin:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...ler-lists.html

(Edit: there are other more detailed "explanations" from the following month, where they explained they manually dropped books and moved them around to highlight "meaningful" books and that new releases could be swamped by older books).

So, yes, NYT "Bestsellers" are only new, because they exclude all others.

The lists exists to tell people what to buy, not to document what they actually buy.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually they publicly announced the NYT list is a promotional tool *only* for recent releases back in august 2015 [snip]

Actually already back in the last century.

From LA Times, OCT. 8, 1986

Best-Seller Listing Is Issue in Lawsuit by Author

The list necessarily omits not only authors like Blatty but countless others whose books are relatively successful but, under the paper’s calculations, do not merit a listing.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Now there's a bold prediction. Would you care to put a date on it?

Here's my not-bold prediction: No publisher, with more than 1 percent of the advance-paying narrative book marketplace, will drop eBooks altogether in my lifetime (I'm 64).

I'm not sure that bold is the word I would have picked.

As I've said before, the book market is going through the same changes that we saw in the music market and are seeing in the video market. While eBooks haven't had that break through that many of us expected, it has a significant percentage of sales and no publisher is going to walk away from that. Where we will be in 20 years, no one knows, but I think it's rational to assume that eBooks will still be around. Maybe they will have that break through that gets more people buying ebooks over paper books. Maybe, like music, they will shift from sales to streaming or rentals. Who knows, but it's a pretty good bet that eBooks (and paper books) will still be around.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Is this supposed to be a trick question?

Here is a question for you:

Do you seriously believe that the books on the NYT bestseller list are the best selling books?

Sure, why not?

I learned something new, thanks

[Tomk2]

Originally Posted by leebase

Nobody is saying "using the library is wrong". We are saying "the amount you pay in taxes....YOU pay....doesn't cover the cost of the books YOU read". You know...unless perhaps you only check out one or two books a year.

It's not bad. It's not wrong. But in the context of "how much of a hardship is it for the publishers to put a time window on when books are available for libraries"...the answer really is "it's a big nothing burger".

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.

[Flaneurette]

I feel a bit as if Macmillian is specifically targeting me and my buying/borrowing habits. I read primarily new release lit fic and I drastically cut back on buying and mostly borrow from my library with overdrive/Libby since agency pricing took effect. I was fine paying around 10 bucks for new releases but now at 13.99 and up- not so much. I was hoping prices would go down but instead the BPH restrict library lending- which is not a good precedent. I certainly don't feel BPH owe me anything but the net result of their actions just makes me not want to read any of their books. Then I read comments on this forum that make me feel guilty or shamed for using the library- I guess I wrong about who the library is for- only children and the destitute evidently..

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

Then I read comments on this forum that make me feel guilty or shamed for using the library- I guess I wrong about who the library is for- only children and the destitute evidently..

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