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The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

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Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#61

Post by brewdad »

kazinator wrote: post #35

If libraries want to be part of the e-racket, maybe they need to drink the full commercial Kool-Aid, and introduce a two-tier model: a free, regular membership and a paid, premium membership. The premium memberships fees go toward buying content, and are rewarded with perks like longer loan periods, priority holds, and exclusive access to new material.

Libraries are one of the most socially equal institutions we have. They are crucial to lower income families. I’d rather those who don’t want to join the queue simply use their money to buy the material than let them buy their way to the head of the line.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#62

Post by gnicholas »

praxulus wrote: post #23
waveBidder wrote: post #20

Honestly at this point, I feel like the ethical thing to do is "steal" digital and buy/borrow physical, the copyright surrounding digital goods has been so thoroughly gamed in the favor of publishers.

Is there reason to believe authors aren't getting a cut of the library license costs? I used to buy my ebooks until I realized libraries had ebook catalogues. A large portion of the books I've borrowed are sales the author lost, they ought to be compensated somehow.

Yes, they do. I believe it starts around 10% based on what I've heard from authors of not-tremendously-high-selling books. My friends who self-publish get much, much more. I believe digital sales/loans are also immune from "returns" or other chargebacks that apply to physical book sales.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#63

Post by RheingoldRiver »

gerad wrote: post #51
yareal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People read for reasons beyond pleasure. I might be doing a study or comparing authors, I might be reporting on history or researching someone. I might be doing a comparative analysis. Ten checkouts seems low enough that it's likely to get regularly cause problems. 100 checkouts seems too high. So start bisecting. 50? Almost certainly too high. 25 maybe reasonable. They also might have p90 checkout rates and found th…

Also, if you have kids then you check out tons of books at a time.

To put a concrete number on "tons" - when I was a kid we'd frequently check out 300 books at a time, and the reason the number was 300 was that library cards had a limit of 100 each, and my mom, my dad, and I each had our own library card. Any time I was home sick from school they were all used to check out books for me; and yes, we would go through all 300 of them. Kids' books are pretty short.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#64

Post by RheingoldRiver »

knappe wrote: post #45
yareal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People read for reasons beyond pleasure. I might be doing a study or comparing authors, I might be reporting on history or researching someone. I might be doing a comparative analysis. Ten checkouts seems low enough that it's likely to get regularly cause problems. 100 checkouts seems too high. So start bisecting. 50? Almost certainly too high. 25 maybe reasonable. They also might have p90 checkout rates and found th…

I suppose this is true, but feels like the exceptional case. And why not have a reasonable policy that allows someone to appeal their hold limit and have it subjectively approved. I am a fairly prolific reader and I only have 7 holds spread out across 3 libraries. I seriously doubt 25 is the p90 here.

I mean it depends how much you read. If you read 1 book a month, sure. If you read 4 books a week and it's mostly relatively popular genre fiction, you can't just wait to get through the waitlists, you have to pre-plan your reading and sign up for all the books you plan to read for the next 3 weeks ahead of time.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#65

Post by 83457 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #58
LeafItAlone wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's beyond odd; it's simply idiotic. You would not "buy down" holds for physical books, or not to a ridiculous degree. If there are 100 holds for some book, you're not going to go out and buy 75 or whatever. Libraries certainly do this. Might not be at (your suggested) 75/100 rates, but if a physical book is popular, library systems do purchase more copies.

Then why aren't they reducing the maximum number of non-digital holds? (or did they already have that limit?)

They likely don't have an issue with physical holds. Digital holds are just too easy.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#66

Post by vel0city »

koolba wrote: post #10
teeray wrote: post #6

> While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy.

> Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system. I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. If as a society we have a problem that our libraries are too popular, then that’s probably a good thing. > I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy t…

> I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books.

The fact I can just wait to checkout a lot of books I'd otherwise buy digitally massively cuts back on me buying books in the end. I practically don't even subscribe to magazines anymore because it's so easy and free to just check them out on Libby. I just went on a long road trip and had tons of hours of audiobooks digitally delivered for zero cost up front.

Obviously I'm just N = 2 (my wife is the same) but I imagine some decent chunk of potential book sales are similar.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#67

Post by Terr_ »

anamax wrote: post #47
teeray wrote: post #6

> While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy.

> I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy. That was what the Internet Archive was doing. They got sued and the last I heard, had lost at every level. That said, I don't know that the lawsuits are over yet. To be clear, no one claims that IA digitally lent out more copies than it physically had. The publishers argued that I…

Latest I can find on that is:

> [2024-04-19] Today, the Internet Archive has taken a decisive final step in our ongoing battle for libraries’ digital rights by submitting the final appellate reply brief [PDF] in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the publishers’ lawsuit against our library.

https://blog.archive.org/2024/04/19/internet-archive-stands-...

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#68

Post by Terr_ »

vel0city wrote: post #66
koolba wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system. I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. If as a society we have a problem that our libraries are too popular, then that’s probably a good thing. > I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy t…

> I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. The fact I can just wait to checkout a lot of books I'd otherwise buy digitally massively cuts back on me buying books in the end. I practically don't even subscribe to magazines anymore because it's so easy and free to just check them out on Libby. I just went on a long road trip and had tons of hours of audiobooks digitally delivered for zero cost up…

In addition to the not-buying part, there's also (A) where do I find room to store this and (B) who can I lend this to when I'm not using it and (C) how do I get it back when they're done, etc.

Thankfully, the local library is a traditional American institution ready and capable of doing that for myself and others in my community.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#69

Post by iapark »

anamax wrote: post #47
teeray wrote: post #6

> While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy.

> I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy. That was what the Internet Archive was doing. They got sued and the last I heard, had lost at every level. That said, I don't know that the lawsuits are over yet. To be clear, no one claims that IA digitally lent out more copies than it physically had. The publishers argued that I…

From Wikipedia:

“Furthermore, they argued that the Internet Archive was not abiding by CDL, as it had acknowledged that its partner libraries were not always withdrawing their physical copies from their shelves.”

Are you sure no one argued they weren’t lending more books than they had? Specifically during the pandemic it is true that just kind of decided that it was probably the case that there were plenty of library books not being distributed (note books they didn’t own) so it was ok to loan basically as many copies as they wanted

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#70

Post by vel0city »

brewdad wrote: post #55
gostsamo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like how electric cars add artifical engine sounds. A side note, there is some sense in the artificial sounds of the ev engines. I'm blind and if not for them, I might be dead in five years, together with many no so attentive people.

No doubt the external artificial noises serve a valuable purpose for both the blind and the sometimes inattentive. The artificial sounds pumped into the cabin to simulate a naturally aspirated V8 are nonsensical.

I'm not fully against the idea. Audio feedback has been a part of the experience of driving for so long. A lot of people probably get a feeling of "I'm going fast" based partially from audio queues. Having that audio feedback of the car speeding up rapidly might help make people realize they're accelerating a bit hard or whatever. It can be easy to not realize how fast an EV can accelerate with its instant torque

I do think it should be entirely optional though.

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