Library Futures Releases Digital Censorship Report

The past five years have seen escalating attacks on library digital content, including databases of newspaper and magazine articles. Library Futures has published a report that exposes the falsehoods in these attacks and the underlying anti-government agenda at work: “Through analyzing content ban legislation, public hearings, public reports on student searches, and interviews with librarians from across the United States, we found that a vocal minority of activists are using ‘pornography’ as a bogeyman to erode free speech and information access in schools and libraries.”

Read the full report here.

Here are key findings:

1. Bogus Claims: Challenges against “porn” in library databases are not only unsubstantiated—they are sometimes purposeful acts of disinformation presented with false narratives about the source, context, or character of the information.

2. Normal School Use: Despite the claims from censorship advocates that minors use library databases to access porn, there is no evidence to support this claim, as well as more than five years of evidence from Utah demonstrating that students use databases to conduct normal and assigned student research.

3. Self-Censorship: Increased content bans and the threat of worrisome legislation have a chilling effect on libraries, with librarians reporting “self-censorship” even when content hasn’t been challenged.

4. Local Controls: Database providers have implemented more local controls as a result of the EBSCO pornography accusations, resulting in an increased use of overly restrictive stopwords and other filtering that limits minors’ access to critical information, particularly health and race information.

5. Influence and Escalation: High-volume content challenges often originate from a single or small number of sources that wield disproportionate influence through use of social media or capturing the attention of an authority figure. These challengers often circumvent established policies and procedures to rapidly escalate their threats.

6. Harmful to Minors: Claims of pornography in library materials are based on discriminatory ideologies that can negatively impact children’s learning, civil rights, and wellbeing. However, students recognize the real harm in censorship and are one of the most powerful change agents when advocating for or against legislation impacting library collections.

The report is cogent, well-researched, and well-worth a read for anyone concerned about libraries being able to share digital content.

IndieLib 2025 is on!

While the program isn’t final yet, IndieLib 2025 is scheduled for April 16 in Manhattan at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at New York University (139 MacDougal St. Room 408, New York, NY 10012).

Here’s a description: “This forum seeks to facilitate conversation, encourage transparency, and plan for beneficial partnerships between two groups that are rarely in direct communication: indie publishers and librarians. Panels will discuss topics collection development, promoting discovery of indie titles, library ebook license models, and transparency in data reporting. The emphasis will be on action items to create better representation of independent publisher content in libraries, equitable and sustainable collection strategies, and ways to facilitate libraries’ mission for access and the public good.

Library Futures at NYU Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy, in collaboration with the Digital Public Library of America, will host discussions exploring key issues at the intersection of publishing, librarianship, and law. Topics will include library ownership and the future of digital first sale in light of the Hachette v. Internet Archive decision and the impact of AI on publishing.”

Register here.

I attended IndieLIbe2024. It was an interesting and worthwhile event. Please consider attending.

404 Media on Hoopla's AI Generated Content

In “AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library,” 404 Media’s Emanuel Maiberg explores how “Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to provide patrons with information they don’t realize is AI-generated.”

[Disclosure 1: I am cited in the article.]

We at RF have commented on this problem before. It is good to see it get wider attention. It should be noted that many librarians have taken up the matter with Midwest Tapes (provider of Hoopla) rather than seek a media outlet. We’ve basically been told that we can suppress content if we want—just say what. That’s not good enough.

It should also be noted that we in libraries are not against Indie authors and small-publisher provided content. Far from it. They represent one of the best ways for libraries to provide quality content at sustainable prices in an ecosystem where the big publishers make collection tough for us. But the AI content should only be made available as on option, not the default. Of course, few (no?) libraries would choose it.

[Disclosure 2: I was an early tester of Hoopla and provide one of their first public library endorsements. I’m not down on Hoopla. But they seem to have lost their way.]

RF sends a big thanks to Jennie Rose Halperin and the good folks at Library Futures who have worked to bring attention to the problem.

If you are concerned about the problem and are a Hoopla customer, why not talk with your rep about it?

NPR on "Why is your Libby hold taking so long?"

Andrew Limbong, host of “NPR’s Book of the Day,” has posted to YouTube about this issue, interviewing Lisa Wells, Executive Director of the Pioneer Library System.

There won’t be anything new to librarians here, but bring the matter to the attention of the public is always wonderful and appreciated:

View it here.

A few minor points:

“Authors Guild says ‘Libraries should just be given more money’:” Hey, suits me just fine, but a.) it isn’t going to happen, certainly to the extent we’d need to provide that much more, and in most places likely not all and b.) we’d still be getting ripped off big time by unfair prices when compared to print. Our print purchases haven’t bankrupted anyone, and they’ve been going on for hundreds of years. The AG, as usual, obfuscates the truth with good sounding bu . . . specious points.

“Even though legislation like it failed in Maryland and New York.” It didn’t fail in New York. The governor backed down. In Maryland and many other states, the new legislation that is NOT like the old. It as been changed, based on different points, and will withstand what anyone can throw at it legally. That’s why the publishers and lobbyists throw so much money at legislators. They know they’ll lose, so best make sure the laws won’t get a vote.

Andrew and Lisa, still a great piece—thanks for sharing the truth!

Libby’s Unlimited Hold Delays—Why, Oh Why?

The ReadersFirst Working Group has been sent notice of an OverDrive “feature” harming its service to a library. Are you having a similar experience?

It involves the option to delay holds repeatedly.

On high-demand popular titles—even older ones--such as Kristin Hannah's The Women, repeated customer delaying of holds is creating havoc with checkouts.

Here is how repeated delaying of holds is affecting one of that library’s most high-demand titles, in fact, The Women.

Before the holidays that 40% of holdable copies were not checked out. It was decided to give all the holdable copies “Lucky Day” status so that they might circulate more readily. We’re talking hundreds of copies for this library, not one or ten. It’s a big investment that this library, and indeed all libraries that get multiple copies, would like to see being read rather than sitting idle.

The tactic worked. For three weeks over the holidays, nearly every copy was out all the time. Never more than a couple were available, and those were snapped up quickly.

Recently it was decided to find out what would happen if EVERY copy was made holdable again, hoping at least some copies would move beyond the chronic "delayers" to people who wanted to accept their holds. Even though this title came out nearly a year ago, quite a few people have been at the head of the line for some time, not delaying their holds while others do.

As of today, only about 60% of 300 ebooks were checked out and 55% of 200 audiobooks. New holds are still being placed on both formats all the time, but the copies are slow to trickle down because of the huge number of delayed holds.

This situation is intolerable for the library. Short of buying 2000+ copies, the holds further down the line cannot be filled as long as people near the top keep playing ping-pong with available copies. It looks like it is time to go back to “Lucky Day” copies again, even though people waiting who want the book will be disadvantaged. At least the titles will circulate.

Meanwhile, this is a metered title. The expiration date creeps closer and closer, meaning the library will have to license many, many titles again. Not good!

Our understanding at RF is that the ability to delay holds indefinitely was implemented by OverDrive without customer participation. It is detrimental to our service. Was it put into place so that libraries would feel the need to load up still more on possibly expensive titles? That seems to be the effect it is having.

If you are having an experience like this, perhaps it’s time to drop OverDrive a note to let them know you’d like to see a change.

Alan Inouye: How Will We Ever Resolve the Library Digital Content Problem?

Alan Inouye, ALA’s Senior Director of Public Policy & Government Relations (and soon retiring—good luck, Alan, and we’ll miss your wisdom and advocacy!) has published an article in the current issue of Maine Policy Review asking this question. The issue has thoughtful articles on librarianship and climate change, “social work creep,” intellectual freedom and managing print collections and is well worth a look, but this particular article is most central for RF concerns.

Here is the abstract:

Library access to digital content is characterized by a big dose of exasperation. Although digital content provides some remarkable benefits, the shift of the access rubric from copyright to licenses provided many inferior provisions for libraries. This dilemma spans library type, and features the digital book issue with public libraries in the 2010s to the present. In the past decades, the library community has advocated for change via direct engagement with the industry, state legislation, federal policy and media campaigns. Overall, these efforts have been modestly effective at best. Fundamental reconsideration of the path forward is needed. The first step on that path is a thoughtful assessment of the needs and opportunities for digital content in libraries, and the resulting possible policy directions.

One might, alas, go as far as to say efforts have been a failure. We have made modest increases in the variety of licenses; more publishers provide offerings than in 2010, including many smaller or medium-sized and Indie publishers where solid deals on some excellent content provide solid choices. Not every Big 5 (then Big 6) publishers was offering ebooks in 2010, but those that did offered “perpetual access” at hardcover prices. With the disappearance of that option and the growth of metered access at inflated (to put it mildly) costs, the years since then (especially 2018/9) read as a history of public libraries taking it on the chin. School and academic libraries fare no better.

So, is it time for “a thoughtful assessment of the needs and opportunities for digital content in libraries, and the resulting possible policy directions”? Phrased this way, as the article does, perhaps:

Most importantly, we must get beyond facile and simplistic slogans such as “we want lower prices.” Indeed, we do, but narrowly focusing on price is not a viable strategy. We must avoid knee-jerk reactions, and we must not expect easy wins, since there are no such things. First, we must focus on what libraries will need and want to serve their communities. Then we must consider, what is obtainable in the political and business realms. There is no easy answer or shortcut. . . . The library community has much remedial work to do.

We do have much remedial work to do. But does “what is obtainable in the political and business realms” mean giving up the quest for a robust and sustainable digital collection—which the public certainly indicates they want through their library use patterns, and which is increasingly vital for preserving access? I’m not sure how and where this remedial work will be done. We haven’t been so very good at developing a unified policy across libraries. Can we do better? No matter what, any discussion needs to needs to take place with the understanding that we aren’t going to get anything without a fight. Haven’t at least the big publishers shown they won’t ever bend, even as other publishers have shown it is possible to run a business without digital terms so utterly different and worse than print sales? Is the fight worth it? Do we stand a chance? Prospects at the federal level are grim, even more so now with the incoming administration so obviously privileging corporations over the public weal. Perhaps digital, especially streaming, will spell the end of libraries as the gatherer of public funds to benefit all in a way that few can achieve individually. The big publishers have shown they are perfectly willing in digital to leave libraries out, preferring many individual sales over collective sharing. The effort is not just about digital. It’s about libraries fulfilling their basic mission of supporting the public by pooling resources for the good of all, no matter what the format. If we don’t fight for that as the end goal, then we might as well throw in the towel now and resign ourselves to libraries being supplanted, at least in digital. With the many forces fighting against libraries and many other agencies because they despise government action and want everything privatized, is this a fight we can ignore?

A Look at Preservation (or the likely lack thereof) in a Digital Age

Tony Ageh, Michael Bayler, Chris Durlacher and Julian Turner have taken a detailed look at the difficulties library face in preservation under currently prevailing conditions. RF has often lamented that books see to lose their importance for many publishers after they no long seem to have commercial value, and yet they fight to prevent digital sharing and even library archiving of those same works. It’s well worth a look:

“Digital-only e-books and e-journals will be lost unless publishers, research libraries, and dark archives collaborate to ensure their long-term preservation. 

Preservation of Knowledge in the Digital Age is a new report was commissioned by Arcadia from Ageh Consulting and co-authored by . It involved interviews with 43 key figures and a survey of librarians from a range of institutions. It highlights that even when libraries’ licences for e-books allow for copies to be archived, few possess the capability and resources necessary for systematic digital preservation. Moreover, although publishers’ agreements with so-called ‘dark archives’ should ensure that copies survive, this is rarely applied to ebooks and – for both books and journals – the principle that ‘lots of copies keeps stuff safe’ may be being breached in practice.

You can download the full report here.”

Sundry News: IA on 78 rpms and Florida Lawsuits

Chris Freeland with the Internet Archive has announced that “More than 750 musicians have signed an open letter demanding that major recording labels drop their lawsuit against the Internet Archive for preserving 78rpm recordings.”

Fight for the Future is sharing this open letter, in which musicians oppose the music publishers in the lawsuit, saying “We don’t believe that the Internet Archive should be destroyed in our name.” They further call upon “record labels, streaming platforms, ticketing outlets, and venues to immediately align on the following goals”:

• Protect our diverse music legacy

• Invest in living, working musicians–not back catalogs or monopolies

• Make streaming services pay fair compensation

In the name of corporate profit—and certainly not for protecting musicians, most of them making less than peanuts from streaming—the publishers are intent on unbalancing copyright. They have no interest in releasing these works. “‘Copyright law in the United States is intended to promote the progress of science and useful arts’, nonsense,” one can all but hear them saying, “we’d rather millions of recordings be lost to time than preserved, even though the IA project isn’t costing us revenue, just to make sure our money is always protected.” Roll over, Ebeneezer Scrooge. Christmas has a new and bigger holiday miser.

Douglas Soule of the Tallahassee Democrat reports “Citing tax dollars spent, judge urges Florida school district to settle book ban lawsuit.” Judge T. Kent Wetherell II (a Trump appointee, in case anyone thinks this is some liberal plot) recommends the Escambia School Board settle a suit brought by PenAmerica, Penguin Random House, and some brave parents because it “should be particularly important to (the school board) because it is spending taxpayer money to defend this suit and it could end up having to pay all or part of Plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees on top of its own attorneys’ fees if Plaintiffs prevail in this case.” They have also spent lots of public money on a separate suite involving “And Tango Makes Three.” If they lose, the school board could be out over a million dollars in attorney and court costs. But are they being reasonable? Of course not. They argue “Removing books is "government speech," meaning it's unrestricted by the First Amendment.” The judge rightly scoffs at that: "The Court simply fails to see how any reasonable person would view the contents of the school library (or any library for that matter) as the government’s endorsement of the views expressed in the books on the library’s shelves.” One wonders just how many of the county’s residents wants to see that much money fly away rather than being spent in the schools. Perhaps a radical few. Maybe those few should volunteer to pay the costs themselves. As for the school board, hey, go sit in an elementary school classroom. Maybe you’ll learn the concept of subtracting $1 million from your budget.

RF sometimes takes shots at PRH for their digital licensing costs. In this holiday season, we are glad to be able to say something nice about you, PRH.

Happy holidays to all who work for a better library digital content experience and for all who fight for digital preservation and the freedom to read freely. And lumps of coal to all who ban legitimate and important works and to those who would rather see works die even if preservation is not eating into corporate profits.

2024 Cheers n Jeers

Updated—oh, we’re not done.

The end of the year is upon us, and that means only one thing. Well, it means many things, of course, but only one for ReadersFirst. It’s time for our annual Cheers n Jeers, where good things that have happened in library digital content land are celebrated and troubling things are called out with heaping helpings of snark.

Update:

Thanks to my RF Working Group colleague Lisa, who adds the following:

[CHEERS to Audible for adding (still more) content to libraries through Palace. Your original content is greatly appreciated and attracts customers who know your name and the quality of your work to the library digital content experience. May your authors thrive! We’ll help.

While we’re talking Palace, CHHERS to our RF partners in Canada. Vancouver and Edmonton for have added this new e-book platform for library customers in their cities. Amazon, Audible, new collection models, tens of thousands of free quality titles, at the fingertips—cheers, indeed.

CHEERS to the Internet Archive (IA) for rebuilding after multiple cyber attacks (and, of course, JEERS to the hackers. You want to stop access to the Wayback Machine and so many great resources? You’re no heroes. May your names and actions be buried by history—oh, wait the IA is making sure your actions aren’t. ).

Thanks, Lisa!

While we’re talking IA, CHEERS for a brave stand on CDL. You were up against billions in corporate money and digital copyright laws unbalanced in favor of those who seek only profit at the expense of the preservation of the intellectual record and against the “Progress of Science and useful Arts.” What about the hundreds of thousands of books that don’t have a current digital license and that will be ignored or forgotten because some corporate type thinks those works have no value but best to hold onto them just in case? IA, long may you thrive and keep those works available as long as you can.

Maybe we need some way to find reclaim them and find commercial value for authors—oh, wait, darn it, I forget HUGE CHEERS for Paul Crosby (of Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University) and Tessa Barrington, Airlie Lawson, and Rebecca Giblin (of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne) for Untapped Potential. Sorry, Rebecca, “il miglior fabbro” (gender is wrong, but that’s the original quote, sorry again.)

Now back to our orginal post.]

In what may be called (once again, alas) the year of the book ban, CHEERS with bells on for all who fight everywhere for the freedom to read. Librarians, organizations, publishers, writers, attorneys, and especially caring parents and brave young readers, your courage is laudable and inspiring. In library digital land, especial thanks go the five libraries in Books Unbanned and their generous supporters who make that initiative possible: Brooklyn, Boston, LA County, San Diego, and Seattle. CHEERS, too, to the DPLA (and Lyrasis) for The Banned Book Club. Through the power of library digital books, young people all over the country have access to challenged titles, even in areas where libraries are underfunded or even non-existent, and wherever the blinkered bluenose censor holds sway to deny reading based on ideology.

A special CHEER is due to Dr Tasslyn Magnusson with PEN America and EveryLibrary for tremendous work documenting challenges and bans. There is unfortunately ever so much to track; this information allows ever so many to know the threat and to fight back against those benighted small minds who want to tell everyone else what they can’t read.

An equally loud JEER for the groups and states pushing their narrow-minded, undemocratic, and anti-American banning agenda. Since when does “freedom” consist of taking away freedom from everyone else? The loudest of JEERS for the 18 states— Texas, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia—filing amicus briefs in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to reduce libraries to the choked mouthpieces for local governments, taking selection away from library professionals who desire to serve ALL. You want to support a county that just coincidentally “weeded” Isabelle Wilkerson’s magisterial Caste and books on the KKK and on Rosa Parks? Oh well, at least you’ve exploded the lie that the censors are after “pornography.” You are sentenced in absentia to read the United States Constitution and write a 500 word essay on how it refutes every page of Project 2025. No using generative AI to help!

Speaking of AI, JEERS to Midwest Tapes’ HOOPLA for importing “a plethora of irrelevant, seemingly AI-generated, and even pirated materials that often differ greatly from the choices that librarians make for their communities.” With people attacking library collections, and libraries themselves, in unprecedented ways, our reputation for providing quality collections must be even more jealously guarded then ever before. A bunch of dreck in a popular service doesn’t help. Some of the selections have all the authority of a debunked lie on X. We shouldn’t have to curate your collection for you. Stop the slop. OverDrive, RF hears reports that you aren’t labelling titles in your catalog as A.I. “created,” thus creating more work for selection librarians to sort out the chaff. No jeers for you now, but fix it.

CHEERS to the publishers who are experimenting with new models for library ebook acquisition, especially those that are working with DPLA and IPG to offer ownership rather than licensing of content. Between high demand and limited budget increases, as recently documented again by Library Futures’ Jennie Rose Halperin and Laura Crossett, libraries are increasingly finding ebooks unsustainable, our collections circumscribed by constant re-licensing and high prices. CHEERS to the many publishers, often medium or even small in size, that offer reasonable costs to libraries on good terms. This content, often high in quality, is perhaps our best current hope for developing collections anything like the richness we offer in print. While we are about it, let’s give two cheers for one of the Big 5, Penguin Random House, for offering a perpetual as well as a metered option for audiobooks. Even that helps. Want the full three cheers, PRH? How about that option in ebooks?

Speaking of unsustainable, continued JEERS with a raspberry on the side to the BIG 5 for your digital prices for libraries. For hundreds on years, libraries have paid fair prices for millions of copies in print, and you’ve all done fine. Now suddenly our limited digital acquisitions are going to cannibalize your profits and drive you into bankruptcy, impoverishing your authors? And you have the crust to blame us for author earnings? It ain’t us. Where is all that money going? JEERS to you, too, for unleashing your myrmidons, the AAP, to get a small number of legislators to use procedural tricks to thwart the people’s will to pass fair ebook laws in various states. The AAP at least is simply doing its job. Where is their money coming from?

Let’s end with a CHEER, for the states that will once again introduce legislation using consumer protection and procurement laws to get fair (print equivalent) ebook terms. Even states that convince legislators to conduct an investigation and ask pointed questions of large publishers (and thanks again to the many other publishers that do offer fair terms to libraries) can help. We can’t expect federal legislation under the incoming administration. It isn’t, however, up to you alone. Librarians, put the limited money into titles that offer some reasonable “Bang for the book.” Let’s say it with our wallets. If we keep paying outrageous rates for content that the publishers price thinking we’ll just keep shoveling public money into the corporate trough, we’ll can’t blame them for our woes.

Happy holidays to all in a time that will be a challenge for libraries and their values. CHEERS for and to all in libraries who meet that challenge: staff, trustees, friends, and readers. There will be setbacks. We will prevail. As the poet says, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

From the IA: Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record

As if the often ruinous big publisher prices and unfavorable license terms weren’t enough to prevent libraries from building and maintaining a deep and sustainable digital collection, the move to streaming—and often deliberately excluding libraries from access—is also becoming an issue.

Luca Messarra (of Stanford University) and Chris Freeland and Juliya Ziskina (of the Internet Archive) have released a report on this issue. It’s worth a read.

“In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history.

• The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at risk—in digital form—of disappearing from public view without ever being archived.

• Cyber attacks, like those against the Internet Archive, British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Calgary Public Library, are a new threat to digital culture, disrupting the infrastructure that secures our digital heritage and impeding access to information at community scale.

When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public’s ability to access its own history is at risk. 

Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record (download) aims to raise awareness of these growing issues. The report details recent instances of cultural loss, highlights the underlying causes, and emphasizes the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations. By empowering libraries and archives legally, culturally, and financially, we can safeguard the public’s ability to maintain access to our cultural history and our digital future.”

Current laws unbalance copyright to the advantage of rights holders and to the detriment of “the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts,” not to mention to the detriment of the sharing and preservation of the intellectual record. Knowing the details of the problem is important for working for change. Give it a read.