Guest post: OverDrive magazines no longer offers The Economist

Thank you to Carmi Parker for sharing this news with RF:

OverDrive libraries that offer digital magazines learned this week that OverDrive has decided no longer to offer The Economist. For many libraries and consortia, The Economist is the most popular of the digital magazines OverDrive offers. In 2022, it represented 5% of the magazine circ at the Washington Digital Library Consortium (WDLC), which serves 830,000 residents through 45 libraries in Washington State. WDLC plans to request a content credit proportional to circ (5%). We hear through the grapevine that at least one other library has requested a credit and been successful.

We understand that it is the publisher in this case who no longer wants to offer The Economist to libraries on the standard magazine terms and that OverDrive, as the distributor, is simply complying with their requirements. However, WDLC renewed its 12-month digital magazine license in early January and we do not feel it is appropriate that either the publisher or the distributor be fully remunerated with public funds for popular content that will not be available for 11 of those 12 months.

There is a larger issue here with the arbitrary nature of current license agreements, which allow publishers and/or distributors to remove content at will. When libraries license something for a specific term, such as 12 or 24 months, then the content associated with that license should be available for the duration of the term, or libraries should be credited with funds. Merely substituting other titles to make up for the loss of the originals is not acceptable.