The magical $0.50: Why ebook economics don’t work in librari

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wetair
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The magical $0.50: Why ebook economics don’t work in librari

Post by wetair » July 30th, 2010, 1:23 pm

an article on librarything on ebooks and libraries

http://www.librarything.com/blogs/thing ... libraries/

Omega12596
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Re: The magical $0.50: Why ebook economics don’t work in librari

Post by Omega12596 » July 31st, 2010, 1:40 am

While the stats are interesting regarding print books, the generally significantly lower price of ebooks means a much lower cost-per-circulation point. If a library bought an ebook for 10 bucks and lends it out 100 times, the cost per is a dime. The real "issue" isn't in the cost, but in the lending itself, since digital work is treated like software and lending is explicitly prohibited.

All that said, I believe as the e platform continues to grow, publishers with digital content will find a way to work a happy medium with libraries, as they have when lending print books and movies/music.

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Re: The magical $0.50: Why ebook economics don’t work in librari

Post by tchann » August 2nd, 2010, 12:16 pm

I read the article and felt that something was a little off with it, so I sent it to my mother, who's been the technical coordinator at a public library for the last ten years.

While she didn't feel comfortable being quoted exactly here on the forum, she did note that he wasn't looking at the total cost of checking out materials from the library. In our state, libraries are required to spend 12% of their total budget on materials, and many libraries are buying ebooks (hers included) and seeing great results. She also pointed out that ebooks aren't a limitless material for borrowing - they still have a restriction on the number of 'copies' available and the circulation period they can be checked out for, which makes them the same as most any other book.

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Mira
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Re: The magical $0.50: Why ebook economics don’t work in librari

Post by Mira » August 2nd, 2010, 3:08 pm

That was an interesting article, wetair, thanks for sharing it. But I think the logic doesnt' quite work. It pre-supposes that the makers of e-books won't want their books to be lent out and will try to block it.

Frankly, I think it's the opposite. Amazon, Apple and others are probably trying to push the e-book agenda, Amazon especially. They want people reading e-books; becoming familiar with the benefits, accostomed to the format. I'd bet they will cooperate and give permission to libraries, if they haven't already. I've seen several posts that talk about e-books in libaries, like Tchann's, so I suspect it's already happening.

wetair
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Re: The magical $0.50: Why ebook economics don’t work in librari

Post by wetair » August 2nd, 2010, 7:58 pm

Yeah, I thought something was off about it too. Couldn't quite put my finger on it and I wanted other people's thoughts.

Omega12596 - I think libraries have some sort of special contract where they lend for a specific amount of time in specific formats, always one copy at a time. So for them lending is not strictly forbidden.

I thought publishers might be wary of library ebooks because they might people are stripping them of DRM. Not sure if people actually do that.

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