U.S. libraries are battling high prices for better e-book access
peter.suber's bookmarks 2024-05-07
Summary:
"Where it stands: Publishers typically require libraries to renew the license to each e-book every two years, or after 26 loans — policies that libraries call prohibitively expensive.
- This restricts the number of e-books — particularly popular bestsellers — that they can lend out to patrons, who are angry and baffled by the limitations.
- Readers love the free (to them) apps that allow them to borrow countless e-books and audiobooks: Libby (the dominant one, run by OverDrive) and hoopla.
- But some libraries say that the cost of renewing their contracts with OverDrive and hoopla are prohibitive, so they're dropping the apps — hoopla in particular....
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Driving the news: A Connecticut bill to boost libraries' bargaining power in e-book negotiations was tabled last week after a three-hour debate in the state House of Representatives.
- Similar bills are under consideration in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
- Seven states took up the issue this year, with about a dozen interested in doing so next year, says Kyle Courtney, a lawyer and Harvard librarian who drafted model e-book legislation for states...."