Libraries being bled dry
You'll own nothing and you'll be happy
Andrew Limbong of NPR's Book of the Day Podcast on YouTube Shorts talking about digital library services like Libby:
Lisa's library buys their digital copies from OverDrive, which is the big digital distributor for libraries. And they have 88 copies of "The Women" in ebook format at 60 bucks a pop, that comes out to $5,280. Which Lisa will have to rebuy some of those copies 24 months after purchase if she wants to keep up with demand.
The apparent issue, at least to me, stems from the simple issue of ownership. In the physical world, a library could pick up copies of a new book for anywhere between $8 and $30 for a single volume. If 88 copies are purchased and 24 months goes by, do you know what happens? The library simply continues to checkout the books with no additional cost. Oh, how did these poor despairing publishers possibly manage in an age before ebooks?
Online digital libraries are so widely popular for their sheer convenience especially in the wake of the pandemic. Because of this, companies like OverDrive, who are backed by private equity, are attempting the most straightforward method to bleed public library funds dry. This singular aspect of perpetual subscriptions facing our educational institutions is a feature, not a bug. Now that the public expects these amenities, rates are skyrocketing.
Limbong goes on:
Author advocacy groups such as The Author's Guild say the issue isn't the price libraries are paying, but the lack of funding for public libraries. Because, you know, people need to get paid.
The Guild has taken the stance that it would like to recover potential losses of ebook or audiobook sales that libraries would eat into, but I find this unconvincing. This is not to say that I do not want authors to get their fair share. I certainly do. But the fact that there is now a middle man like OverDrive in the picture combined with money hungry publishers, there is now a perverse money printing machine for a product that takes 3MB of space on a server and takes virtually zero effort to distribute.
As of the time of writing this, a federal funding freeze has caused a great deal of uncertainty for public institutions and non-profits throughout the United States. Now more than ever are libraries in a delicate position due to this modern-day, unending culture war which threatens one of America's most valued, long-standing, and inherently democratic establishments.
With predatory subscriptions, diminishing funds, political meddling, and surging responsibilities, who knows what the future will hold for our institutions, but the books are not stacked in our favor.