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Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

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Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#71

Post by armchairhacker »

habosa wrote: post #62

This sucks but was inevitable. Libraries are such a weird and wonderful thing. Even though books are widely sold, there’s a place where you can go and read them for free instead. And it’s not some weird loophole, it’s a basic unit of our society and an assumed part of every community. Unfortunately this is America. Nothing can beat out profit motives forever. The libraries really never stood a chance.

Libraries for the purpose of getting information simply don't make sense in the digital age. The internet is far bigger and more accessible than any library, and you can find information on nearly any topic in exclusively ad-free, public domain sites like Wikipedia, the Gutenburg project, and arXiv.

Libraries now exist more as a place for community: somewhere quiet anyone can freely hang out, access resources like 3D printers (or for the very poor, public fountains/restrooms and the internet), and attend workshops. Some libraries like the Boston Public Library are still nice and active even today (https://www.bpl.org/). But unfortunately as you mentioned, people today really don't fund community, and there are a lot of degrading and closing libraries.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#72

Post by armchairhacker »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #10

I have consulted in this sector, specifically academic publishing and textbooks. My sense is that publishers in the education market are biding their time while old pedagogies wane. Every new paper book soon becomes a used book, worth zero or even negative revenue, whereas ebooks are sold de novo to every student at nearly full price with much lower fixed costs (print, distribute, stock, return). But publishers are w…

The value of ebooks isn't the content, but that they have specific homework problems or codes which are required to access online assignments. Particularly the latter, giving each student a different code, because otherwise an entire class can share one ebook. Otherwise, most ebooks have pirated online PDFs, and even without those, all the information is readily available in many places online.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#73

Post by thfuran »

ghaff wrote: post #56
toomuchtodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet Archive is participating in the legal process to get to a conclusion that ebooks are the same as physical books, otherwise the concept of libraries is over (except for those who can pirate and the data stores that exist across the internet, Anna’s Archive, Zlib/libgen, etc).

The concept of libraries, especially those that aren't large research libraries, has already shifted quite a bit. I almost never go down to my small town library to take out a book or read a magazine. Maybe a DVD now and then that catches my eye. Sometimes I discount museum passes. I could go to talks. Their e-book service isn't that compelling. Other people probably have different behaviors. People I know with young…

>Their e-book service isn't that compelling.

My county library system has about 100k ebook titles and another 30k audiobooks. I've probably read or listened to well over a hundred library books since the last time I actually went to the library.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#74

Post by prepend »

habosa wrote: post #62

This sucks but was inevitable. Libraries are such a weird and wonderful thing. Even though books are widely sold, there’s a place where you can go and read them for free instead. And it’s not some weird loophole, it’s a basic unit of our society and an assumed part of every community. Unfortunately this is America. Nothing can beat out profit motives forever. The libraries really never stood a chance.

Is this unique to America? It seems the same problem exists for libraries globally, right?

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#75

Post by [deleted] »

shiandow wrote: post #65
ses1984 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cut copyright to a less stupid number like what it was originally 14 years. Make maintaining a copyright for those years contingent on having X % of sales available for free in libraries I’m nitpicking but this isn’t less regulation, it’s different regulation. Some would even say it’s more. You’re reducing a number but adding complexity with the percent sales requirement.

Fine, abolish copyright then, let's see what happens.

[deleted]

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#76

Post by thfuran »

vzaliva wrote: post #69

What's worrying about the article is the fact that electronic editions of ebooks expire, meaning libraries can't keep them indefinitely. It's reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster model, where there's only a short window to watch a new movie in theaters. So, while libraries might stock new releases, what happens to the older ones? Could this trend be pushing readers towards newer publications?

I've found a fair number of series at my library where they only have e-books of, say, #2 and #4, and I've always assumed it's because the rest expired and haven't been re-purchased.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#77

Post by dghlsakjg »

bluish29 wrote: post #18
JKCalhoun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, surprised (not surprised?) to see the used-textbook market seemingly gone now when I was recently visiting my daughter at the University of Kansas. It used to be a small industry that nonetheless allowed a brick and mortar store to thrive as a secondary bookstore to the university's student union. Never mind the savings for students.

Even with paper textbooks, publishers will now provide online assignments (which is convenient for universities) and other online materials which you will not be able to sell (it will expire) with the book. So they force students to buy new textbook for each class.

The crazy thing to me is that for a lot of the classes that use these online materials, nothing has changed in 50 years. 100-300 classes are largely the same as they were before digital learning.

The problem from a broader point of view is a coordination problem. The people making the buying decisions (professors and departments) are not the people paying (the students). I would wholeheartedly support legislation that forced professors to pay the same textbook fees as their students, and for departments to be required to cover the costs for scholarship students.

I’ll bet we would see a lot more schools opting into open source textbooks and articles from the library if that were the case.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#78

Post by ghaff »

thfuran wrote: post #73
ghaff wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of libraries, especially those that aren't large research libraries, has already shifted quite a bit. I almost never go down to my small town library to take out a book or read a magazine. Maybe a DVD now and then that catches my eye. Sometimes I discount museum passes. I could go to talks. Their e-book service isn't that compelling. Other people probably have different behaviors. People I know with young…

>Their e-book service isn't that compelling. My county library system has about 100k ebook titles and another 30k audiobooks. I've probably read or listened to well over a hundred library books since the last time I actually went to the library.

Maybe I should look again. It wasn't that interesting last time I looked. But that was quite a while ago. It's just a small town library but I assume they use one of the regular services.

ADDED: Indeed. They use the rebranded Overdrive (Libby). Last time I looked at (maybe) Overdrive ages ago it seemed to be highly populated with things like self-help books. Looks useful.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#79

Post by beej71 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #45
beej71 wrote: post #44

> "They do have a funding problem, but the answer is not to take it out of the pockets of authors and destroy the rights of creators and pass unconstitutional legislation,” said Shelley Husband, senior vice president of government affairs at the Association of American Publishers I'm guessing Husband's solution is to raise taxes to pay themselves for more expensive books. The AAP is also suing Internet Archive, incid…

The Internet Archive is participating in the legal process to get to a conclusion that ebooks are the same as physical books, otherwise the concept of libraries is over (except for those who can pirate and the data stores that exist across the internet, Anna’s Archive, Zlib/libgen, etc).

Even if you disagreed with IA's emergency library thing (which I did), they're providing an amazing service to humanity orders of magnitude larger than anything AAP will ever accomplish. I encourage everyone to support them (which I do).

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#80

Post by asylteltine »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61
ghaff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I don't go through anything like the number of books I used to. I have a ton of unread stuff on my Kindle--some of which is admittedly large collections of classics which I got for $1 or $2 each.

What about people who cannot afford a Kindle, or cannot afford to buy e-books?

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