"Untapped Potential": An Important Study of Library Digital Lending

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Paul Crosby (of Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University) and Tessa Barrington, Airlie Lawson, and Rebecca Giblin (of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne) have released an important study of library digital lending, Untapped Potential: Results from the Australian Literary Heritage Project.

The group established “an independent publishing imprint, Untapped, to re-publish out of print but culturally important titles. As well as rescuing 161 lost books, the research team used the data generated throughout the process to help answer important research questions that couldn’t be answered otherwise.”

They summarize as follows:

  1. We found no evidence that library lending of Untapped’s ebooks ‘cannibalised’ sales - and indeed some evidence that it increased sales for certain books.

  2. There was substantial demand from the public to borrow and buy the Untapped titles as ebooks.

  3. Library promotional activities can strongly influence the books borrowed by readers.

  4. Re-publication of these previously out of print titles opened up new streams of income for authors.

  5. Participating authors and heirs also enjoyed substantial noneconomic benefits from the project.

  6. Authors faced a wide range of obstacles in reclaiming their rights to out of print titles, adding support to the case for minimum baseline rights to better protect their interests.

  7. Library control of e-lending infrastructure could improve access to data and help direct more money to authors and publishers.

We in libraries hypothesize that our digital lending, and indeed all our lending, helps support a heathy reading ecosystem and benefits authors and publishers. The publishers know it. Why else do they sponsor and attend library conferences so assiduously? We have some evidence for our hypothesis. This study adds to that evidence nicely.

While it would be a small leap from this study to suggest a corollary, doesn’t it seem likely that more favorable digital content terms on existing titles from certain publishers, far from “cannibalizing” sales, would lead to more sales to the public and not just to libraries? It certainly seems to work that way with print. Perhaps people don’t want to “own” ebooks they way they do print books. It would be interesting if a Big 5 publisher at least gave it a try.

I know, I know dream on, librarian. Fat chance, hunh?