Some Things We Like, Something We Don't Like, and Link to Webinar

We have a few changes to celebrate, or at least smile about.

Thank you to W.W. Norton for changing their basic license terms. They previously used to have a hybrid license: libraries had a title for either 52 circulations or 2 years, whichever came first. Since many libraries offer three week checkout periods, 52 circulations would practically never be reached and the license would explode at two years.

They have changed to just 52 circulations, and often at an attractive price. For example, The Odyssey as translated by Emily Wilson is currently in at $40, less than $1.00 per circulation. This 52 circulation cost makes it far more attractive than the $4.00 individual cost per circulation model. The title dates from 2017, so there may be some lower cost factored in due to age. But it’s a classic, and many libraries might well take a chance even in a year when Mr. Christopher Nolan hasn’t released a blockbuster movie of this epic. We’re certainly far more likely to if given 52 circulations rather than the two year option. We encourage selection librarians to reward publishers that seem to be listening to various library and library organization requests for new (or revisited) models on reasonable terms.

So, Norton, how about a perpetual use model as well? $80 for on-copy/one-user at a time perpetually? One can get other older translation in ebook at no cost, but this one might we worth the expense for a modern and accessible version.

We also like that Hachette and Macmillan are experimenting with licenses metered by checkout rather than by time.

Hachette is offering 48 checkouts at the same price as their 24 month model: $75. Since 2 years is not likely to bring in 48 circs, even for books that sustain their popularity over time, the 48 circ model is the better deal.

Macmillan is offering 24 circs for $48. Their mid-list titles are coming in at $60 for 2 years. Popular new titles may not be a comparative bargain at the 24 circ price, but titles likely to expire due to time with fewer than 20 circulations could be. Certainly, we might be more tempted to take a chance—and anything that can help break us out of the cycle of constantly carousel of only the most popular titles is a good thing.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that W.W. Norton can do well at 52 circulations for $40, or $.77 per, while larger publishers charge respectively $1.56 and $2.00? Over two and nearly three times the cost? Really? Hurumph. All the more reason to look around!

Something we don’t like is that for several libraries in our Working Group, access to titles on a pay-per-use model has disappeared. Over 100 titles are just gone in this option, with no warning or word about why. OverDrive, you are not the cause, but hows about some notice and explanation? It’s unlikely things simply go away without publishers telling you.

Here is some follow-up information about the recent COSLA/Lyrasis/ReadersFirst webinar on fair digital costs:

RECORDING, October 13th: https://lyrasis.aviaryplatform.com/r/pc2t43mc56?access=GACsDEymkBA5xeomO0Gghg==

If you would like to receive a Certificate of Participation, please complete the Lyrasis Evaluation Form located at https://s.zoom.us/m/bPFbnnZcv. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

What Are "Reasonable" Costs" Free Webinar

Please join COSLA, Lyrasis and ReadersFirst for a conversation about library ebooks on October 13, 2026, 1:00 – 2 PM, with an optional 30minutes afterwards for group discussion of the affordability crisis.

Register here

Library conversations about what ebook costs should be have gone on since HarperCollins introduced a metered access model in 2011. The conversations gained momentum in 2018, when the rest of the Big 5 publishers moved away from perpetual access to metered models. Recently, with many libraries saying that Big 5 terms are simply unsustainable and state laws (passed or proposed) calling for "commercially reasonable" terms, a discussion of exactly what that might mean is necessary. Libraries of different sizes and collection budgets may have different responses, but agreement on some points may be possible. Should we begin with some comparison to consumer costs--terms which we often already get from Indie publishers? To some equivalent with our print costs? Some model that factors many variables? Join a panel of library selectors and others who have studied this issue in-depth for a lively discussion of the vexing question, "What is Reasonable?"

Learning Outcomes

• Understand current library digital content license terms.

• Understand why some libraries (and legislators) are advocating for related laws.

• Understand some different models for assessing digital collection costs. 

• Have knowledge of some tools that will help assess a library's digital collection costs.

Intended Audience

Librarians, library selectors, library administrators, library trustees, library digital content vendors, publishers of all sizes.

Some questions to be explored:

• Some in the field have suggested that libraries should pay consumer retail price for digital books-call it $9.99 to $14.99. Why, or why not, is this a fair price for libraries to pay?

• It has been claimed by at least one library digital vendor that digital and print are so different that print cannot b e used as a yardstick to measure the fairness of digital licenses. Do you agree or disagree, and why?  

• Publisher lobbyists have argued that any reduction in current Big 5 terms would significantly harm authors. How do you respond?

• Publisher lobbyists or even publisher reps have also said library efforts to negotiate terms are in violation of copyright and even "price fixing." How do you respond?

• A recent press release from the Authors Guild called out OverDrive as a large part of the problem for libraries, saying that "it takes 50% off the top of any library licenses" and wondering if "the essential infrastructure of digital public lending should be a private-equity-owned, for-profit monopoly at all." Our print vendors often give us discounts of over 40% on print cover prices. Has any digital vendor ever done so?  Does the Authors Guild make a valid point?

• If changes are not forthcoming in Big 5 terms, how will your library respond?

Continuing Education Credits available upon request!

Presenters

Amy Mikel, NY State Ebook Working Group

Carmi Parker, Librarian, Whatcom County Library System

Lisa Radha Vohra, Director, Collections & Membership Services, Toronto Public Library

Michael P. Santangelo, Director for Collection Management at BookOps

Lyrasis Learning events are delivered using the Zoom videoconferencing platform and will have AI-generated captions available. American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation is available upon request. If you need ASL or other accommodations to support your participation in the course, please contact us at es@lyrasis.org at least 2 weeks in advance of the event or as soon as possible.

Fuller Rebuttal of So-Called "Study"

On September 3, ReadersFirst noted a significant flaw in the data in the AAP and Authors Guild commissioned study on the impact of library eBooks and eAudiobooks on the retail market.

Garbage in, garbage out. The study is undermined by flawed data.

One might leave it at that, but other problems in it require further examination. That examination is ably undertaken in a joint statement from eBook Study Group, Readers First (yes, members of our group contributed), Authors Alliance, SPARC, and the Rhode Island Library Association.

We encourage all who care about the present and future of library ebooks to read the rebuttal.

We invite publishers to engage in dialogue to discuss terms that would avoid the need for legislation. We thank the many publishers who already offer reasonable terms for licensing and even buying digital content. If the large corporate-owned publishers hold steadfast to their unreasonable terms, then libraries, their readers, and their supporting legislators have few courses of action to redress decades of unfairness. We must seize upon one that has at least some chance of leading to negotiation.

Two Webinars of Interest

Two (free!) webinars of interest are coming up on September 29. They happen to occur at the exact same time. That’s okay—sign up for both and view one later.

Will State Law Solve the Library eBook Crisis?
Tuesday, September 29 @ 10am PT / 1pm ET
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1999615962171

Join Internet Archive and Authors Alliance for a discussion exploring the growing state-by-state movement for fairer eBook licensing terms for libraries. Featuring Kyle K. Courtney (Social Law Library), Juliya Ziskina (eBook Study Group) and Deborah Schander, State Librarian of Connecticut.

If you can’t make it for the synchronous session, go ahead and register to receive a link to the session recording. This conversation will also be released as an episode of the Future Knowledge podcast on November 4.

Opening Digital Doors - Accessibility on the Library Shelf

As libraries expand their digital offerings, ensuring that every patron—regardless of physical limitation—can discover, borrow, and enjoy digital content is paramount. But how accessible are the platforms and reading apps we rely on every day and what can libraries do to optimize their digital offerings for patrons with accessibility needs?

Join us for this edition of The Digital Shelf, hosted by The Palace Project, in partnership with COSLA and ReadersFirst, as we dive deep into the real-world accessibility of library digital shelves. Our panel of accessibility advocates, library technology specialists, and digital publishing experts will provide a candid evaluation of major digital library platforms, examine current reading standards (WCAG, VPATs, EPUB3), and share practical strategies for making your library’s digital shelf truly inclusive.

Presenters include: Chancey Fleet (New York Public Library), Robert Laurie (Benetech), Jason Broughton (Dreamscape)

Register Here

Both should be well-worth attending!

Significant flaw in new library eBook study

On Tuesday, September 1, 2026, the AAP and Authors Guild announced a new study they commissioned to analyze the impact of library eBooks and eAudiobooks on the retail market. However, their study authors failed to understand the limitations of the datasets they were using. The report is seriously flawed in its calculation of the number of library eBooks in the market, improperly counting shared consortia collections as if they were offered by individual libraries. To be clear, this is not an error within a few percentage points. They overstate eBook availability by multiple times.

The study authors use the IMLS Public Library Survey, a valuable tool for understanding traditional library statistics, but with limited usefulness for understanding digital library data because it has no way for libraries to indicate when they share collections as part of a consortia.

For example, the state of Rhode Island has 48 public libraries, all of which participate in Ocean State Libraries, a consortium that contracts with OverDrive for ebooks and eAudiobooks. In the 2023 PLS, each of the 48 libraries reports that it offers its patrons an eBook collection with ~186,000 items. If we used the study authors' methodology to determine the total number of eBooks available to residents of Rhode Island, we would total all of the numbers each of the 48 libraries reports and come up with 8.96 million eBooks.  But in fact, the total number of eBooks available to Rhode Island residents in 2023 was ~186,000 and the study methodology overreports by a factor of 48.

Ebook consortia are the norm in the US, not the exception.  Every state has at least one consortium. At least eight consortia are run at the state level like Rhode Island. 37 of the 50 states have at least one consortium with more than 20 libraries, and some are much larger. The Ohio Digital Library, for example, includes 180 libraries.

To find the total number library eBooks available in a given year, we need to determine the total offered by each consortia in the country and then add that to the totals for non-consortial libraries. To our knowledge there is no single list of all consortia and the libraries they include, so it is not possible to calculate from public records the number of eBooks available through public libraries.

Unfortunately for the study authors, their numerous arguments about the economic impact of library eBooks rests on the claim that 1.5 billion library eBooks were available in 2023. Because this number is wildly inflated, all conclusions they draw about the availability of library eBooks and its impact on the retail market must be summarily rejected.

Do We Need State (and District) Ebook laws?

With Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia passing laws in an effort to get fair and sustainable library ebook terms, and the Illinois and New Jersey legislators and soon others exploring such laws, a clash is not surprisingly developing over the need for and efficacy of such laws.

To judge from legislative testimony, the Big 5, or at least their lobbyists, and OverDrive think the laws unnecessary and indeed likely to be harmful.

As far as I know, none of the smaller or Indie publishers have commented. This is likely because they don’t need to. With rare exceptions, their offerings already meet any standard for what might be considered reasonable. As always, RF encourages libraries to discover and share their titles, many of great interest, even award winning. Why not reward those who don’t gouge us?

The Ebook Study Group ((Kyle K. Courtney, Juliya Ziskina, Heather Joseph, Meikle Hall, Tucky Taylor, and John Chrastka) recently published an opinion in Library Journal, Moving “Beyond the Publisher Playbook: Why state-level contract law is essential to the future of digital library rights,” responding to an earlier opinion piece that repeated some of the publisher/one library vendor claims about the laws.

Many followers of RF have likely read it. If you haven’t, it is important and worthy of attention. We won’t go into details about its claims, but commend it for showing the need for ebook laws, not only for sustainable terms but for carrying out the mission of libraries in an increasingly digital age.

We will, however, add a point about the need for state-level laws. The piece notes that “For over a decade, national organizations pursued a strategy of incremental negotiation, asking publishers to voluntarily reform a highly lucrative, predatory licensing market. That approach failed.” Fail it indeed did. We add that without action, the failure will continue. ReadersFirst recently released a study about ebook terms, suggesting a very-much middle ground between what might be the most basic costs (consumer retail) and the current inflated. We wrote a piece about it and discussed it the ALA Ebook Friday meeting. At that event, a representative from a VERY large publisher said that they would never agree to these modest terms or negotiate at all to any library proposal, calling negotiation “price fixing.” Calling BS on that one. The closest I’ve seen to price fixing happened in 2018, when within a few month four of the Big 5 went away from perpetual access and adopted nearly identical metered terms. The timing is certainly suspicious. A bunch of people don’t have to gather in a smoke-filled room and twirl black moustaches to engage in fixing pricing.

We called for negotiation in our study. Major library organizations have jointly called for negotiations. The publishers still aren’t listening. They are not going to listen. Yes, state laws are necessary. If we are ever going to get fair terms, it seems we must force the issue. I’m happy to hear of some better path. Until that path is clear, state-level laws are our only redress. We don’t need more studies. We don’t need more information. We need action. RF encourages all states to get involved so that we can create a movement with enough economic clout to get them to talk with us.

Until then, shop Indie and create demand for new voices.

Vanishing Culture: An Article Worth Reading

Michael Menna and Lila Bailey have published an article in The Political Librarian worth a (free!) download and read. Here are some passages to give you a taste:

We are living through a troubling paradox: Digital technologies have enabled the production and distribution of more information than ever, yet access to that information is increasingly fragmented and fragile.

If copyright, privacy, and other regulatory frameworks were designed to balance the interests of creators and users with the public’s need to access and contribute to the wealth of human knowledge, then our increasingly digital information economy has thrown that balance out of whack.

In this new media environment, publishers and other content providers have unprecedented power to control knowledge and culture with technical restrictions and exclusionary licensing terms. Governments also have an easier time censoring what people can see by scrubbing their websites and pressuring commercial platforms to do the same. . . . [F]or libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage organizations (“memory institutions”), it poses an existential risk to their core public service mission of preserving culture and protecting history. When these organizations can no longer collect and provide access to digital materials, members of the public cannot place their trust in a stable record—which affects their ability to confidently participate in democratic discourse.

As often noted by RF, the licensing economy—increasingly pushed by corporations from tractor manufacturers to motion picture studios—present serious challenges to libraries, economic as well as in preservation and sharing. Give the article a look: it is a worthwhile rad for anyone interested i library digital content.

Slides for Ebook Friday

Here’s a link to the slides from the ALA Ebook Interest Group Annual Meeting (AKA Ebook Friday).

As those who were there will attest, it was a lively, informative, and very good session. Over 100 attended

About 20 people took advantage of the virtual attendance option, shared with RF subscribers.  I didn’t record the session so that our presenters felt more free to opine If you are one of the 20, I hope it worked well for you.

The slides should give you a pretty good idea of what was going on, but of course much information and context will be missing.

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jq70narEFROJUFKh-LmJy6X-GnUksJHTDha1jBoqpdQ/edit?slide=id.g3e1a5dd66e4_0_0#slide=id.g3e1a5dd66e4_0_0

There was lots of interesting news in the advocacy section. I’m encouraged that Illinois may pass a library digital content law without a trigger clause in an upcoming session.  That would certainly create a stir.

I thank all the presenters for a great session and for all they do to create a better library digital content experience. 

Sundry: A Better Metered License and Know the Risks

In response to the recent joint statement to the Big 5 on library ebooks, Mr. Steve Potash of OverDrive recently announced on LinkedIn that two of those publishers were experimenting with an ebook license based on numbers of circulation (rather than by time, such as 12 or 24 months). He says the following:

“A top priority of our recent advocacy has been addressing one of the most burdensome terms in digital book lending: eBook titles with time-metered access, typically 24 or 12 months for a single OCOU title. The cost and waste this model creates for collection development teams has helped open productive dialogue with the rightsholders who require it.

OverDrive is pleased to share that two of the US Big Five publishers are now live-testing select popular MA24 titles with an option to purchase OCOU units that are not time-limited. Each unit will include a preset number of loans with no expiration date. This model gives libraries clarity upfront and ensures they receive the full lending value of each title they acquire.”

The devil will of course live in the details: a 26 circ model priced at something like $75 won’t earn any resounding cheers. We’ll hold off on celebrating for now, but we do thank Mr. Potash for his advocacy. This COULD be a promising development. We hope so.

Now, sir, any chance of some advocacy for the return of the perpetual access license for Big 5 ebooks? None of them offer that (some still do on audio), and the joint statement gives it the highest priority.

It has been reported to ReadersFirst that an influential vendor threatened librarians at ALA Annual that they would be sued for pursuing ebook legislation. I didn’t see it, so won’t name names, but we encourage all librarians to re-read Kyle Courtney’s spanking of the the publisher threats involving state laws and not to worry about mention of threats of lawsuits from or by any library vendor. As for the vendor—and you know who you are—way to support your customers, pal!

Knowing the ins and outs of digital contracts can be a challenge. We recommend as one resource Understanding Confidentiality and Risk Assessment: A Reference Guide for Everyone, Everywhere by Layla Maurer, brought to us by Library Futures. It was developed developed to support “libraries in contract negotiations. These resources are meant to help librarians understand confidentiality and risk in order to empower them to read, understand, and negotiate library-vendor contracts. Nothing within this guide constitutes legal advice, and, as always, specific questions should be addressed to qualified counsel.” Worth a look by acquistions librarians!

Introducing the ReadersFirst Library License Standards Project

On behalf of the ReadersFirst Working Group, to which I am honored to belong, I introduce a proposal to the big publishers suggest what library digital content terms might be fair.

We ask to engage the Big 5. Many Indie and even medium sized publishers already give fair, even excellent terms. You, we ask to continue to work with us as you already do. We at RF encourage all libraries to acquire and promote works from these, our partners in reading.

Rather than comment at length on the RF proposals here, I point readers to an article in Words & Money for an introduction to the papers : Librarians Want the Big Five Publishers to Negotiate ‘Fair’ Digital License Terms with Libraries. He…

Sorry you have to look at a photo of me!

Please visit our position papers for a deep dive into the proposals:    https://www.readersfirst.org/position-papers 

There are three papers, but the article concentrates only on the first.

• Digital Library Book License Standards: for digital collection librarians, an outline of sustainable license terms

• Implementing the Standards: for selectors, how one consortium uses the standards in OverDrive Marketplace

• Publishing Stakeholder Companion: for distributors and publishers, information to contextualize the standards and invite mutually beneficial conversation about digital licenses

The idea is to start a conversation to get better terms for library digital content.

No doubt some in libraries will think our group's proposed terms too favorable to publishers. But based on what we pay for print, and thus what has seemed "fair" over the years, I think we are suggesting something librarians could live with and the publishers can't say is unreasonable. It would double the number of digital titles we could get and prevent having to get the same title over and over. The proposal may seem a compromise. It will not perfectly appeal to anybody. I doubt a set of terms can be developed that would suit every library. But isn’t this the reason for compromise?  

I have not received, and don't expect to receive, comment from any of the Big 5 publishers. They tend remain silent as libraries ask for fair terms. Perhaps they will think about the proposal. I hope so. With ebook legislation passing, it seems a good idea at least to start talking about what might be "reasonable." If we could get even one to talk, and, I hope, act, we will be making progress. 

Thank you to all the members of our working group, and especially to Carmi Parker, for all the work that went into developing this proposal.

It could well be that only action, legislative or otherwise, will force the big publishers to change. But they can't say we in libraries aren't willing to talk, offering terms that are, we think, in line with what we get with print and that have been fair to publishers, authors, and library readers for centuries. Digital has changed the ways some of us get books, but these are still books. And in a time when reading books as a past-time hardly seems on increase, and organized political forces try to limit what we read, we all have a sake in promoting books.