It Isn't Just U.S.

Thanks to Gary Price of InfoDocket for picking up a podcast from Ireland.

Sean Moncrieff’s podcast is described as follows: “Irish libraries are facing a crisis due to the extortionate cost of eBooks. President of The Library Association of Ireland Cathal McCauley, told Sean [that] Irish libraries are encountering an uphill battle to remain feasible due to ‘scandalous’ price increases, restrictive licensing terms, and a lack of availability where eBooks are concerned.”

The points sound familiar:

Libraries are not offered ebooks in every case

If the are offered, prices are often “scandalous.”

At this cost, libraries still don’t even own but only license, with many restrictions

Prices have gone up during the pandemic

Large publishers have the most egregious terms

No rationale has ever been offered for these prices

The mission of the library is threatened in the current digital ecosystem, as prices become unsustainable in a time of increasing demand.

It is depressing and yet unsurprising to hear these points made internationally. Publishers are apparently the same all over the world: stick it to libraries on ebooks because they can. Call it the litany of wrongs. And it ain’t just being said in the U.S.A.

ReadersFirst Presents the Publisher Price Watch

The cost of digital content has of course been much in the library news for a decade, and longer. Ten years ago bestselling titles might often not be available in digital form to libraries, with some larger publishers not opening their catalogs. Titles that were available could, however, often be licensed perpetually at near print retail cost or sometimes less. Librarians were unhappy—justifiably so—at being closed out of the market. In a way, however, those truly were the good old days. Imagine paying $13 to $18 for a perpetual license ebook from a large publisher today! No, prices rose, often across the board, in 2013 or so. Then things got worse. With the 2018 shift away from a perpetual to a metered model, we have not only higher prices but shorter access periods. Librarians have asked for negotiations and been given the brushoff. We’ve tried, and are trying, state legislation to enact change, so far without success, though that effort is far from over and will continue. Content cost is the driving factor in what might be termed open rebellion. We can live with metered, even though perpetual access and even ownership has advantages that we must continue to advocate for. Price is all, especially the price compared to the Return on Investment (“Bang for Book”) we get from print. A high price for something we can offer long-term often provides a better ROI than a lesser cost short-term license. But what exactly are the typical costs we pay from larger publishers when compared to print? It’s time to take in-depth look. Librarians need to know how publishers compare with each other, although of course we will often be forced to license from some at usurious rates due to public demand for their titles. We also need detailed and accurate information to present to legislators when we work with them to get better terms, having little other choice than government action due to publisher intransigence. And thus ReadersFirst unveils the Publisher Price Watch.

Created by Carmi Parker and the team at Whatcom County Library System, with feedback from the ReadersFirst Working Group and others, Publisher Price Watch (PPW) shows what we pay on average to license digital from larger publishers compared to print based on may examples. This is just the first iteration. Over time, we will add more publishers and update data on the existing ones. Watch the space for more. If you are a librarian or employee working for a non-profit and want to be involved, there is place on the page for you to express your interest.

Speaking of non-profit, ReadersFirst is all-volunteer and completely non-commercial. We don’t take money from advertisers. We, like ConsumerReports, can thus give fair and unbiased ratings to the publishers’ digital offerings, based upon comparative print costs. For now, none are a “Good Buy,” but some do better than others. Aren’t the ones offering better deals worth a larger share of our funding? Those at the high (and less) fair end of the scale will, we know, get some our money even though their prices are terrible. That is why the fight for farness most go on. In the interim, those publishers will at least see that we KNOW their prices are unfair . . . and are happy to let the public know as well.

Enjoy the Publishers Price Watch!

The Palace Project Adds Overdrive Titles

Lyrasis has put our a press release announcing that ebook and digital audiobook content libraries get through OverDrive will now also launch in the Palace app. OverDrive thus joins Bibliotheca’s Cloud Library, Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360, and other apps in making content available through the “one app to rule them all.”

Atlanta, GA - June 1, 2022. LYRASIS, a global nonprofit committed to increasing equitable access to knowledge, and The Palace Project, the nonprofit library-centered platform and ereader app for digital content and services, are pleased to announce that OverDrive content will soon be available in the Palace app. This addition will bring the largest provider of library ebooks into The Palace Project platform, allowing libraries to deliver the majority of their ebooks and audiobooks from multiple vendors through a single app.

Informed by librarians and supported by a multi-year, multi-million dollar investment from the Knight Foundation, The Palace Project is a division of LYRASIS in strategic partnership with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The Palace Project is designed to support libraries as they work to expand their digital offerings to their communities. The Palace Project mobile app, available for iOS and Android, allows libraries to serve all their econtent to patrons in one easy-to-use interface, while protecting patron privacy and data.

“We extend a big thanks to OverDrive for working with The Palace Project,” said Michael Blackwell, project manager for The Palace Project’s launch in Maryland and Chair of ALA’s Ebook Interest Group. “Having OverDrive’s industry-leading content selection and its powerful advocacy for libraries joined with Palace’s ability to seamlessly integrate content from other platforms will create a rich and easy user experience for readers and be especially beneficial for libraries with multiple content providers.”

“OverDrive is a crucial provider of digital content and adding them to The Palace Project is a major win for public libraries,” says Michele Kimpton, Global Senior Director of The Palace Project. “We believe that by bringing OverDrive and Palace together, we’ll be able to get even more content in the hands of library patrons everywhere.”

Libraries currently using The Palace Project will be able to access their OverDrive titles in the app in the coming weeks, and OverDrive titles will remain accessible in the Libby app as well. To find out more information on The Palace Project or how to get started email info@thepalaceproject.org.

Palace is currently the only platform offering excusive Amazon content and will soon offer Audible. The open source software can be deployed through a third-party vendor at reasonable rates. Libraries looking for access to this content, especially jf they already have multiple vendors, may find taking a look at Palace helpful.

Kyle Courtney on the Curtailing of Library Digital Lending

In an Op-Ed in The Hill, Kyle Courtney persuasively argues for the legality under existing copyright laws of Controlled Digital Lending and calls attention to publisher and lobbyist efforts to gut libraries’ ability to circulate digital materials. Here are a few highlights:

[T]he Internet Archive makes digital copies of physical books already in its collection and then lends them to patrons over the internet. Importantly, the Internet Archive lends each digital copy to only one patron at a time. When that person returns the book, it’s available to the next one who wants it. That’s the “controlled” part, and as most will recognize, it is exactly how libraries lend physical books.

It’s also perfectly legal. The law is already quite clear on this. Through the first sale and fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright law, Congress long ago gave libraries and archives the ability to lend books they purchase for their collections. Through fair use, they created a flexible right to amplify modern technological uses. Congress placed value on helping libraries carry out their mission of supplying community access to materials for research, scholarship and study. Without these legal superpowers, it’s hard to imagine how libraries and archives would operate.

Alleging “piracy” and suppression of their book sales, America’s biggest book publishers have sued the Internet Archive for its use of controlled digital lending. (Arguments for the case begin this summer.) Ostensibly, the publishers are asking the court to force the Internet Archive to shutter its digital lending and to destroy its entire collection of 1.4 million digital books. But it’s clear they’re also using this case as a battering ram against controlled digital lending in order to generate more licensing of their e-books.

Courtney does well to draw attention to the “publishers’ longer and broader strategy to exert greater control over libraries through digital content.” Indeed, the strategy has been embraced by more than just traditional book publishers, as the appeal to New York’s governor to veto that state’s library ebook bill suggests. Lobbyists representing content providers in movies, television, music, radio, and even advertising piled on even though nothing about the bill directly impacted those media. So what the reason? The answer is simple: streaming and licensing allow them to use advances in technology to bypass copyright/ownership by individuals as well as libraries. One might seem to be able to get content perpetually on a streaming platform, but it is illusory. One can rent or “buy” movies, for example, on Amazon. But one can never own the material. One can only license it. And access is only guaranteed by paying monthly or annual platform fees. This new business model must, it seems, be fought for even when not directly threatened. Who knows what might happen if publishers had to give libraries fair digital prices? It could, or so it seems at least in the media companies’ fevered nightmares, snowball and threaten the whole scheme.

Let’s not, however, lose sight of Courtney’s point about libraries. The AAP/publisher lawsuit against the Internet Archive the the spearpoint of a larger thrust to keep libraries paying usurious and unfair short-term license fees in order to share content digitally. Libraries’ mission is threatened in an increasingly digital world. It is high time to give codify libraries’ right, rewriting the grossly unfair DMCA. Are any federal legislators willing to benefit their most need constituents rather than just let the international mega-corps get richer and richer? Until then, thanks to the IA for fighting a battle library readers cannot afford to be lost.

DPLA, COSLA, and RF: Collaborating for Access: Book Challenges in a Digital World

In this third in our Collaborating for Access series of webinars hosted by COSLA, DPLA, and ReadersFirst, we’ll look at what the current political environment of increased book challenges means for digital content. What opportunities are available for libraries to use digital materials to maintain access, and in what ways are digital content and the libraries providing it open to unique attacks across the political spectrum? We’ll bring together a panel of librarians and thought leaders to discuss the ramifications of challenges in the digital world and look at potential solutions digital access may provide.

The session is Tuesday, June 7, at 1 pm ET

Please register here.

Speakers will include librarians from New York Public Library, North Dakota, and Kentucky.

Because much library digital content is accessed through a vendor/app, it is a dream-come-true for would-be censors. Imagine being able to remove public access to thousands of books with the flick of a single toggle. Join us for a lively and sometimes frightening discussion. Fahrenheit 451 is not an impossible future.

U.S. Book Show: Libraries Are Essential

On May 24 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Eastern), the “Libraries are Essential” track of the U.S. Book Show may be viewed online.

Here’s a link to the program:   https://usbookshow.com/libraries-are-essential/

Librarians, it is free to you, should you wish to watch.

 Topics include:  Libraries are not neutral, the politicization of libraries, the movement for digital equity, protecting library workers after the pandemic, and library leadership in the post-pandemic new normal, with closing keynote by Maryland’s Congressional Representative Jamie Raskin.

Not surprisingly, digital content enters into the discussion.

Enjoy!

Censorship Efforts Target Ebooks

Of course we knew it was coming. NBC reports that efforts to censor library books, especially in schools but also in public libraries, are being intensified: “Conservative parents take aim at library apps meant to expand access to books.”

The efforts from a few years back to censor EBSCO databases, fortunately shot down in court, and more recently in Llano (TX), which shut down the public library’s OverDrive account and where residents are bravely fighting back in court, are becoming broader, even including efforts to ban ereader apps statewide.

Ironically, when eight states are trying to expand access by getting fair license terms, explaining that current terms prevent reading because libraries simply cannot afford sustainable access and yet being fought, an even greater threat to patrons’ right to read arises.

This is at least an area where publishers, library vendors, and libraries can agree. An as reported by Andrew Albanese in PW, the ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans is bringing us together. The following have signed on, among many others and thousands of individuals:

American Booksellers Association Free Expression Initiative

American Federation of Teachers

American Indian Library Association

Asian Pacific American Librarians Association

Association for Library and Information Science Education

Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services

Authors Guild

Baker & Taylor

Black Caucus of the American Library Association

Candlewick Press

Chinese American Librarians Association

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Freedom to Read Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

Lerner Publishing Group

Macmillan Publishers

National Book Foundation

National Coalition Against Censorship

National Council of Teachers of English

Overdrive Inc.

Penguin Random House

Simon & Schuster

Society of American Archivists

Sourcebooks

Steve and Loree Potash Family Foundation

The Quarto Group

It’s nice to see PRH, S&S, and Macmillan. Thanks, Sourcebooks, Lerner, and Candlewick! Hachette and Harper Collins, have you signed on? AAP, too busy snootering libraries to sign up?

RF encourages all librarians, libraries, publishers, and vendors to sign on. Lawmakers need to hear that there is another side standing against those who want to control what everyone can read. Vendors, it isn’t enough for you to say “If they choose, teachers can block any book, for any reason, at any time.” If all you do is protect your business and suggest that challenging books aren’t your problem, then you are contributing to the problem.

The NBC article perfectly reveals the attitudes of those who fight to censor:

Robin Steenman, a Williamson County parent who opposes the use of Epic, said it didn’t matter to her that students would have to actively search to find books about LGBTQ pride. She didn’t want the books in the app at all.

“It has still been made available to the student, regardless of whether it is assigned reading or not,” Steenman, who also runs a local chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, wrote in an email. “I guarantee that kids know exactly where to find it.”

It isn’t about protecting children. It’s about pushing narrow-minded and narrow-hearted views onto everyone else. And the ability to shut down reading for thousands, even millions of others is an awfully tempting target for our contemporary blue-nose Mrs. Grundies. They are in the minority. We must all make sure they stay that way.

Unite Against Book Bans!

ReadersFirst, DFPLA, and COSLA will hold a webinar on this topic on June 7 at 1 PM Eastern Time: Collaborating for Access: Book Challenges in a Digital World . More details are forthcoming. Please consider joining us!

Testimony on Rhode Island Bill

While attention is focused on Maryland’s ebook law being set aside (this iteration of it, anyway—but we’ll be back!), other states are forging ahead to bring bills into law. One is Rhode Island, where two librarians gave testimony before the Senate Education Committee on April 27th. Despite having to wait nearly four hours to testify, Ms. Sallee and Ms. Holden hit their marks and their comments were well-received by the legislators. They testified well to libraries’ fundamental points:

• the deleterious changes in licensing, with circulation periods shortening in the last decade, even as costs escalate

• the difficulty of maintaining good collections—or any sort of current collection—sustainably, with burdened by exploding metered licenses

• the yawning gap between what libraries pay for print vs. digital

• the disadvantages for Rhode Islanders, especially the most economically challenged, that current models create though the big publishers’ “stranglehold on libraries.”

The other side didn’t show up to provide oral testimony but provided written opposition. Of course, none of the lobbyist groups signing off (AAP of course, Authors Guild, American Booksellers, Motion Picture Association, BMI, Association of Magazine Media, etc.) are publishers of ebooks for libraries. They are there to protect the move to streaming/licenses, with libraries (and even individual consumers) being allowed to own nothing. Mustn’t let libraries unique and valuable mission of providing and preserving content create any sort of precedent to threaten their ability to milk the public coffers over and over in any format!

Their testimony of course is riddled with misinformation. Let’s look at a few quotes.

“By requiring the sale of a variety of works at below-market prices, it will lessen royalties paid to authors, directly harming their ability to earn a living from their craft.”

I count no fewer than three whoppers there:

• Whopper # 1: “below-market prices.” Really? Let’s look at a sample work, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

  • Available to libraries in ebook format in 2010 for $14 on PERPETUAL license

  • In 2013, the cost went up to $44.85. How did this book suddenly triple in cost? At least it was still for a perpetual license

  • Today, it is $55 for a two-year license. Now that’s putting the “lice” in license, isn’t it? Let’s jack up the price and take away the content.

  • A library could pick up a new paper edition today for about $5. But even if were a new hardcover, we’d be paying no more than about $17.

  • Library ebook cost for next 10 years: $275. The gulf between digital and print costs for libraries is astounding. How is this market price? Translation of “market price”: in digital, as opposed to print, we can charge libraries whatever because, hey, digital gives us that ability and so it must give us that right.

• Whopper # 2: “lessen royalties paid to authors.” Nope. Libraries will, if anything, spend more if we could get reasonable terms. An individual author might make less per sale but authors, plural, would make no less and probably more. How is it that you people don’t get that we don’t mind paying you, we just want fairness? You want a profit? Of course! Fine! How about a fair one? Here’s a novel idea: take advantage of the fact that digital costs less than print, give libraries a break, and watch us buy more copies and author royalties go up. And MORE authors—new authors, authors who aren’t best sellers—will benefit as we diversify our collections.

• Whopper # 3: “requiring the sale” Nope. Have you looked at the amended bill? it won’t require the sale. It won’t allow libraries to enter unfair contracts. But it won’t require sales. How is a state simply saying that its money ca no longer be spent less effectively, even profligately, “requiring a sale”?

Here’s another one , though: “We welcome, for example, discussions to ensure libraries have the funding necessary to procure and provide widespread access to robust physical and digital collections, and to ensure the citizens of Rhode Island have equitable access the technology and broadband connectivity that lets them enjoy these materials.” BS BS BS. Let’s examine this blather. Last time I checked, this funding was coming from the public coffers. Are you offering to help pay? Nah, didn’t think so. So where’s this funding coming from? Hmm, looks like the tax payer. So here’s what this really seems to be saying : “We welcome discussions that will put even more state funding into the trough at our current usurious rates.” I bet you do welcome more at the same price. Here’s a shorter version of the statement: “FEED US!”

Publishers, I can’t believe you are happy with this presentation. The phony claims of lobbyists aside, we think there is room for true negotiation and the partnership that has benefitted us both for over one hundred years. These state bills are a means. You have never negotiated, actually negotiated, fair prices. Talk with us.

The real question for those of use outside Rhode Island is, how do we help? I mean other than pursue our own legislation and spend money on publishes that do give far deals, even if that means creating a market for indie and small press works and eschewing the best seller in digital until we get what is fair to our tax payers and good for our readers? Suppose Rhode Island passes its law, there is no negotiation of terms, and their libraries don’t enter unfair contracts? Will we support them? Will we engage in a campaign to let our readers know the problem—that their ability to read library works is threatened not only by censorship challenges but by libraries’ inability to create quality sustainable digital collections? When the call comes, will we answer?

If not, then the shame is ours.

WordsRated.com: State of U.S. Public Libraries

Nick Rizzo from WordsRated.com has released a study of U.S. Public Libraries suggesting they are “more popular and digital than ever.” For this analysis, a team used the IMLS’s Public Libraries Survey (PLS) dataset. Data ran up to 2019. We may reasonably hypothesize that the intervening years have only heightened a trend that Nick has identified: the shift to digital is real, ongoing, and a vital indicator of library use and relevance.

Read the report here.

Here are the Key Findings:

Why people think “libraries are dying”

• Visits to libraries in a 10-year decline (21.20% since 2009) while people borrow fewer books (19.21% less than 2013).

Libraries are more popular than ever thanks to the strong shift to digital:

• More registered borrowers than ever (174.23 million, or 53.57% of population)

• Total library collection size is larger and more digital than ever (58.75% of collection)

• Library collection use is higher and more digital than ever (37.39% of all collection use)

More library programs (6 million) and higher program attendance (125 million) than ever:

• Library program attendance now accounts for 10.01% of all visits to libraries, up 84% from 2009

• States with the most programs per capita have more visits (88.25%), collection use (51.31%), and registered borrowers (12.21%) than states with least programs per capita

It’s never been more expensive to operate a library 

• Average operating expenses per library is $765,715 up more than 17.00% since 2014

• Libraries costs are more administrative than ever – 89.18% spent on staff and other expenses vs only 10.82% on library collections

Government funding hasn’t covered library operating expenses since 1992

• Libraries would be in a $4.38 billion deficit if relying on government funding alone

• Other Income from donations, grants, fines, and fees addressed budget deficits and helped generate a $17.05 billion budget surplus

• Highest-funded states per capita have more visits (80.99%), collection use (122.49%), programs (73.31%), and program attendance (81.76%) than the lowest-funded states

• There’s never been more libraries (17,468) or librarians (51,190), but library staff are still paid 35.07% below a livable wage for a family of three on average

It is axiomatic that public investing in libraries returns many benefits—benefits that can be quantified at many more $$ returned than spent. Thanks, Nick, for sharing your report!

Interesting Upcoming Webinars from IA

Brewster Kahle and Tony Marx: The Internet Archive at 25
The founder of the Internet Archive speaks with the President of The New York Public Library about the changing roles of libraries in the digital age.

In 1996 a young computer scientist named Brewster Kahle dreamed of building a “Library of Everything” for the digital age. A library containing all the published works of humankind, free to the public, built to last the ages. He created the Internet Archive and its mission: to provide everyone with universal access to all knowledge. “The goal of the Internet Archive,” Kahle has written, “is to create a permanent memory for the Web that can be leveraged to make a new Global Mind.” In the intervening years, libraries have evolved, expanded, and adapted to thrive in the digital age.

Where do these two stories intersect? And how have our understandings about the meaning and value of archives, libraries, and access have undergone seismic shifts in the past 25 years. Tony Marx, the President of The New York Public Library, and Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle discuss.

April 27 @ 11am PT / 2pm ET - Register now for the hybrid event.

Analyzing Biodiversity Literature at Scale
Imagine the great library of life—a comprehensive library that Charles Darwin said was necessary for the “cultivation of natural science"—but in digital form. Explore how historic scientific literature in the Biodiversity Heritage Library becomes data for the larger biodiversity community in this talk from Smithsonian Library's Martin R. Kalfatovic and JJ Dearborn.

This is the fifth session of our six-part Library as Laboratory series.

April 27 @ 11am PT / 2pm ET - Register now for the virtual event.