Lois’s answer to “I own most of your books in ebook and eaudio format but get most of the rest of my e-reading/listen…” > Likes and Comments
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I agree that it's complex and some comparing apples to oranges but the libraries do have to rebuy after either 2 years or a certain number of checkouts so it's not infinite use. Also surely it's less expensive for the publishers to send e versions rather than paper? Which btw in the example would be $15 per copy also. I love libraries but being able to check out a book on a whim in the middle of the night is bliss and I wouldn't have to wait so long if libraries could afford more e copies
I am a librarian at small school. Our most popular titles check out maybe 20 times in two years. Only a few of our books actually wear out. But because we are a library, we are charged library rates. Which usually means, that when I see a book costs $95 instead of $20, I just don't buy it. So we have very few audiobooks because we can't afford them.
The trouble with charging all libraries high prices is that it penalizes (and excludes) small libraries.
That's an interesting point.
Traditionally, local and school libraries were supported by local taxes to make paper books available to their whole community. But we're talking e-content here, which has no need to be localized. (As Amazon has long discovered.) But the problem with making local systems freely available to anyone anywhere is that the people who are benefiting aren't the ones paying, potentially leading to another tragedy-of-the-commons situation.
Backing up and squinting, this looks like a systemic problem, trying to mesh an old, purely physical system (I remember card catalogs) to a new digital one. Librarians have been tussling with this for decades, and indeed have led the charge in many places.
It sounds, at the very least, as if you need an e-content lending system that extends across your whole school system, or better, your whole county, not building-by-building. Which also costs money to install, but not as much as doing it piecemeal. The more granular, the more duplication; the more wide-cast, the more economies of scale can kick in. (Which, in turn, reduces local control.) Trade-offs everywhere, but blockages will surely be routed around, leading to further unplanned knock-on effects.
Ta, L.
Thank for the reply, Lois. Unfortunately, I'm at a small international school overseas, so there is no larger county to share with. There are two other schools in the system, but they are both half the size of my school. That's as wide-cast as I can get. It is, as you say, a complex problem Your charge per e-checkout solution would be a good one if it can ever be made to work.
The UK system for print books runs roughly that there are a few libraries nationally where check-outs per book are recorded and are taken as representative of national check-outs - this is multiplied by the number of copies owned by libraries across the UK and that leads to payments to authors based on how much their book is checked out. I don't know whether the purchase cost of the original book is higher than for the public. I do know that you can donate new and second hand books to libraries and they mostly put them on the shelf with a few heading for charity shops.
As a public Librarian in the US (a mostly-urban county Library of 4 branches, serving about 200,000). We belong to a consortium of public libraries who share our ebooks. We are each, as members, required to spend a certain minimum amount per year on ebooks/e-audiobooks. This ensures that there are no freeloading libraries. On average, an ebook checks out from us about 8 times per year (I do the stats). We pay, as mentioned earlier, four to eight times as much for the eformat as the print format. On average, we will check out the same print book 15-18 times a year. It doesn't seem fair, but it's hard to figure out!
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Talli
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Nov 21, 2019 01:18PM
I agree that it's complex and some comparing apples to oranges but the libraries do have to rebuy after either 2 years or a certain number of checkouts so it's not infinite use. Also surely it's less expensive for the publishers to send e versions rather than paper? Which btw in the example would be $15 per copy also. I love libraries but being able to check out a book on a whim in the middle of the night is bliss and I wouldn't have to wait so long if libraries could afford more e copies
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I am a librarian at small school. Our most popular titles check out maybe 20 times in two years. Only a few of our books actually wear out. But because we are a library, we are charged library rates. Which usually means, that when I see a book costs $95 instead of $20, I just don't buy it. So we have very few audiobooks because we can't afford them.The trouble with charging all libraries high prices is that it penalizes (and excludes) small libraries.
That's an interesting point.Traditionally, local and school libraries were supported by local taxes to make paper books available to their whole community. But we're talking e-content here, which has no need to be localized. (As Amazon has long discovered.) But the problem with making local systems freely available to anyone anywhere is that the people who are benefiting aren't the ones paying, potentially leading to another tragedy-of-the-commons situation.
Backing up and squinting, this looks like a systemic problem, trying to mesh an old, purely physical system (I remember card catalogs) to a new digital one. Librarians have been tussling with this for decades, and indeed have led the charge in many places.
It sounds, at the very least, as if you need an e-content lending system that extends across your whole school system, or better, your whole county, not building-by-building. Which also costs money to install, but not as much as doing it piecemeal. The more granular, the more duplication; the more wide-cast, the more economies of scale can kick in. (Which, in turn, reduces local control.) Trade-offs everywhere, but blockages will surely be routed around, leading to further unplanned knock-on effects.
Ta, L.
Thank for the reply, Lois. Unfortunately, I'm at a small international school overseas, so there is no larger county to share with. There are two other schools in the system, but they are both half the size of my school. That's as wide-cast as I can get. It is, as you say, a complex problem Your charge per e-checkout solution would be a good one if it can ever be made to work.
The UK system for print books runs roughly that there are a few libraries nationally where check-outs per book are recorded and are taken as representative of national check-outs - this is multiplied by the number of copies owned by libraries across the UK and that leads to payments to authors based on how much their book is checked out. I don't know whether the purchase cost of the original book is higher than for the public. I do know that you can donate new and second hand books to libraries and they mostly put them on the shelf with a few heading for charity shops.
As a public Librarian in the US (a mostly-urban county Library of 4 branches, serving about 200,000). We belong to a consortium of public libraries who share our ebooks. We are each, as members, required to spend a certain minimum amount per year on ebooks/e-audiobooks. This ensures that there are no freeloading libraries. On average, an ebook checks out from us about 8 times per year (I do the stats). We pay, as mentioned earlier, four to eight times as much for the eformat as the print format. On average, we will check out the same print book 15-18 times a year. It doesn't seem fair, but it's hard to figure out!
