WILL UNWOUND #697: “The Latest Ebook Setback for Libraries”
March 4, 2012Note from Will: I am reposting Unwinder Linda’s comment from yesterday’s post for two reasons: 1) it is an excellent summary of the latest defeat for libraries in the ebook war and 2) it was posted near the end of the comment section and therefore many of you may have missed it. Thanks, Linda, for bringing this to our attention.
Here is Linda’s comment in its entirety:
This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the official topic of discussion this weekend; however, this is an important point to note and I thought I’d share this information.
I’m sure most of us are familiar with the fact that OverDrive is the company that plays the e-book middle man between publishers and public libraries and that only two of the Big Six publishers allow public libraries to “purchase” their e-books via OverDrive…
And you’ll notice I put the work purchase in quotation marks and that is because HarperCollins is one of the two Big Six publishing companies and although they allow libraries to license their e-books – libraries cannot buy their e-books.
And that leaves the other Big Six publisher, Random House, which will in fact sell e-books, with unrestricted access to libraries. And hats off the Random House for that!
And as of March 1 Random House raised the prices of the e-books it allows libraries to purchase access to via OverDrive. And there is nothing suprising or unfair in that – the cost of everything is going up so it seems reasonable that Random House would raise their e-book prices – and now you should insert the drum roll here for dramatic effect!
How much do you suppose Random House raised its price?
Well to give you an example, consider the new book Enemies: A History of the F.B.I. by Tim Weiner – it cost $30 through OverDrive’s Content Reserve Marketplace on February 29th and on March 1s the price was raised to $90 for that same title. In contrast a print version can be obtained from Amazon or B&N for $19.80 and $19.99 respectively, and both stores offer the e-book version of that same title for $14.99
Here’s a link to a David Lee King blog posting on the subject titled Your ebook rent just went up 300% and I think Mr. King sums up the situation quite well!
And just in case anyone would like to read two articles on the subject here’s one from LJ’s The Digital Shift on that same subject:
by Linda Reimer March 3, 2012
Wow, thanks Will for bringing this issue to everyone’s attention!
I would like to add that, as is frequently the case, there is a typo in that last section just before the link to the Digital Shift article – I intended to change that sentence from “And just in case anyone would like to read two articles on the subject here’s one from LJ’s The Digital Shift on that same subject” to “And here’s a link to an LJ Digital Shift article on the same subject” – I was just trying to do several things at once and hit the post button before I caught the typo.
And when I stated that we, meaning my library system, can “buy” Random House e-books from OverDrive – I should also say that I believe that is true based upon what we’ve been told from our system administrators (our Digital Catalog is a collective catalog that is serviced at the library system level); however, I feel I should also point out that I don’t have access to the library system’s contract with OverDrive so I don’t know how that is worded – in other words there is still a bit of ambiguity on that subject.
And as you can probably tell I’m one of those people that can write 5,000 words at the drop of a hat but I’ll stop in just a moment!
I do feel the subject of library e-book access, and the licensing of digital content versus the purchasing of it, is a very crucial multi-faceted subject relating to the evolving role of libraries today and will be interested to see what everyone else has to say on this subject.
We have known all along that the e-books trip was going to be a bumpy one. This simply proves the point.
It also reminds me of a classic editorial cartoon from about thirty years ago. I forget what the subject was, but the cartoon showed Ronald Reagan, gun in hand, carefully preparing to shoot his cowboy-booted foot.
As with most libraries, our materials budget is not elastic. So we will be seriously cutting back the number of titles we purchase and telling our e-book customers that they will face longer waits and fewer titles to choose from. We will also be looking at other options.
It does simplify my time in the exhibits at PLA next week, though. I will be skipping the publishers and will focus on talking with vendors who are seriously interested in doing business with our library.
Forgive the moment of schadenfreude, but I cannot help but relish the price advantage that print books now enjoy over their digital counterparts.
Tangible products have built-in scarcities. My chair cannot be in two places in the same time, nor is there a technology that will make a thousand instant, free, and flawless replicas of it. If you really want to have my chair, you have to break into my house to steal it or hope to find one just like it for sale elsewhere.
The inherent scarcity of tangible objects makes the pricing and distribution of them a more or less rational process backed by a millenia of social consensus that those who make actual things have to be compensated for their labor and materials.
Not so with digital products. Anyone with a scanner & laptop can make and distribute unlimited copies of digital objects, thus depriving their owners & creators of compensation. The longstanding consensus that authors, musicians, software engineers, journalists, etc., deserve compensation for their work is now shattered.
I’m a life-long Leftie and an Occupy sympathizer. Nevertheless, I have to chuckle at the hysteria about Obama’s supposed socialist agenda. The accusations against him are an obvious case of displacement and projection. Everyone on the internet now labors under intense pressure to upload our creations, collections, and labor at personal expense for the benefit of everyone except ourselves. Attempts to price any of it comes off as a rude, antisocial affront.
Little did the internet’s Libertarian founders know that they were ushering in the most powerful communist regime ever established.
For a view of the situation from outside our profession, take a look at this posting from TechCrunch. The comments are at least as interesting as the post, and you’ll see a familiar name or two there, though most seem to be from nonlibrarians.
I like this comment: “Time for teachers, schools, and districts to write and publish their own books. Let’s take out the middle man!” Here’s an article on how to make your library a local publisher: http://plablog.org/2012/02/a-two-part-plan-to-make-your-library-a-local-publisher.html.
JK Rowling is happy to work with libraries. Why don’t we spend our time reaching out to the authors?
(By the way, Joe, thanks for the postcard!)
Makes me glad I no longer have to deal with this issue. I would hope that collection development librarians nationwide will refuse to pay these horibly inflated prices. But, because librarians want to “serve” their public, they will probably go ahead and buy/rent the grossly overpriced e-books, thus proving that intentions are good but follow-through is dismal. Only when librarians join together in concerted action will publishers recognize their worth and the worth of the library market.
Traditional print material are not going away.
That’s “materials” – plural.
For a perspective from inside the profession (from the director of a college library who has also worked on the public library side), see Karen G. Schneider’s remarks:
“…the entire reading ecology is at risk…. It is really nothing less than an outright assault on fair use; the publishing-industrial complex won’t be happy until readers are paying, not just by the title, but by the page-turn.”
From the August 31, 2011 Publishers Weekly:
Profits surge at Random House
Think there’s a bit of a chance that RH will be reporting even better numbers when August 31 rolls around this year?
Since RH clearly is not hurting, we can view the 300-percent price hike to libraries as something designed not to make more money but to send a message.
The message is that from here on out, reading will be on basis of licensing access to content, not owning it, and of paying to read it. The idea of sharing content as a public good does not figure into the new model. I don’t think Random House could make the message much clearer.
Publishers are simply punishing their only law-abiding customers: libraries, who have already shown their willingness to actually pay more for e-books than their print counterparts. Publishers are just pushing the envelope to see how high libraries are willing to go. If libraries would unite and say not just “no!” but “Hell, no!” this predatory pricing would be gone in a fortnight. But I guarantee you there will be libraries who will say, “This is an outrage! Here is your money” and go right ahead paying through the nose. If libraries act like wimps, why the surprise that they are treated as one?
An imperfect analogy, but still. It’s like a car dealership. They put the retail price on a sticker, then add a local “market adjustment” of several thousand dollars, add on near useless dealer packs, and come up with a highly inflated price. There are customers, bless their ignorant souls, who will willingly pay the price on the sticker as long as their payments are low, and the dealer will gladly take their money. But any savvy customer will know the invoice price and the “dealer holdback” before they set foot in the store. And they are willing to walk out if it doesn’t go their way. It’s called “negotiating a deal.”
If libraries continue to be suckers, publishers will gladly take their money. Meanwhile the publishers will lose their shirts to the bit torrents going out the back door.
I’ve been thinking more about precisely what Random House’s message to libraries is, and I think it has to be viewed as a part of a larger strategy — to get people disconnected from the idea that they should be able to read bestsellers and books from the backlist without paying for the privilege.
Like you, Mick, I suspect the more draconian publishers get, the greater the incentive for the pirates. Bookster, anyone?
As soon as I learned about this price hike by Random House, I reposted the article I had read to my library’s Facebook page. I’m sick and tired of patrons complaining to me that they can’t “find anything good” to download to their ereaders. I’ve written articles for our library newsletter, our community newsletter, and wherever else I could mention it, explaining that the library WANTS to provide better and newer titles for our patrons, but that the publishers won’t sell them. I’m in Wisconsin, where our library consortium has set aside $1 million dollars to boost our econtent. We’d love to be buying all the latest bestsellers for our patrons with ereaders. But I don’t think it’s going to ever be possible unless the consumers start to make some noise. We need to do a better job of educating the general public about the politics and economics of this situation.
Just as health care, once the purview of not-for-profit hospitals, has been commoditized, so also is reading about to be commoditized. We are entering an era when everything has a price and nothing has a value…
Just thinkin’ out loud…
Here you presume that everyone loves E-books – I call this a victory for the BOOK.
THE BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology. No wires. No electric circuits. No batteries. Nothing to be connected or switched on. So easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable. Can be used anywhere — even sitting in an armchair by the fire — yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc. Here’s how it works:
THE BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information.
The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density.
THE BOOKs with more information simply use more pages. Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.
THE BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it.
THE BOOK never crashes or requires rebooting, though like other display devices it can become unusable if dropped overboard. The Browse feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an Index feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.
An optional Bookmark accessory allows you to open THE BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session — even if THE BOOK has been closed.
Bookmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single Bookmark can be used in THE BOOK by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous Bookmarks can be used in THE BOOK if the user wants to store numerous views at once. The number is limited only by the number of pages in THE BOOK.
You can also make personal notes next to THE BOOK text entries with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (Pencil).
Affordable, durable and portable, THE BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of a new entertainment wave. Also, THE BOOK’s appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform with investors growing daily.
* * * The Book ! * * *
We have a bad habit as a society of thinking newer is better – and it just ain’t so. However, if you want to wallow in your bad habits, you have to take the consequences.
It’s a little dated but…
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/9/
It’s a little dated, but still relevant.