Attention Publishers: Libraries buy books.

A LOT of books, in fact.

So it’s pretty infuriating to see publishers behaving as though libraries are somehow stealing books!

I don’t have research data on this (yet!), but my anecdotal experience suggests that people who would check out e-books from libraries are MORE likely to buy other e-books. Far from being a drain to publishers, libraries likely make it more likely that people will spend money on books themselves.

We’ve talked about this debacle before, and will do so again.

When you think about the need for library advocacy, THIS is the kind of issue you can talk about with legislators and other stakeholders. It’s our responsibility to help other people – legislators, publishers, and others – to understand what we need to be successful. It’s actually pretty rude to assume that everyone automatically understands our needs, and what we could be doing to be better at serving our communities.

So, read through this article excerpt, click to read it all, and get ready to tell your stakeholders how important it is that your library has access to e-books for your community!

Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books

By Jessamyn West

Librarians to publishers: Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead.

That’s the upshot of Macmillan publishing’s recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries. For the first two months after a Macmillan book is published, a library can only buy one copy, at a discount. After eight weeks, they can purchase “expiring” e-book copies which need to be re-purchased after two years or 52 lends. As publishers struggle with the continuing shake-up of their business models, and work to find practical approaches to managing digital content in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by Amazon, libraries are being portrayed as a problem, not a solution. Libraries agree there’s a problem — but we know it’s not us.

Public libraries in the United States purchase a lot of e-books, and circulate e-books a lot. According to the Public Library Association, electronic material circulation in libraries has been expanding at a rate of 30% per year; and public libraries offered over 391 million e-books to their patrons in 2017. Those library users also buy books; over 60% of frequent library users have also bought a book written by an author they first discovered in a library, according to Pew. Libraries offer free display space for books in over 16,000 locations nationwide. Even Macmillan admits that “Library reads are currently 45% of our total digital book reads.” But instead of finding a way to work with libraries on an equitable win-win solution, Macmillan implemented a new and confusing model and blamed libraries for being successful at encouraging people to read their books.

Libraries don’t just pay full price for e-books — we pay more than full price. We don’t just buy one book — in most cases, we buy a lot of books, trying to keep hold lists down to reasonable numbers. We accept renewable purchasing agreements and limits on e-book lending, specifically because we understand that publishing is a business, and that there is value in authors and publishers getting paid for their work. At the same time, most of us are constrained by budgeting rules and high levels of reporting transparency about where your money goes. So, we want the terms to be fair, and we’d prefer a system that wasn’t convoluted.

(Read the rest of this article here!)