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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

#41

Post by jonhohle »

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.

My opinion is that right of first sale should extend to digital goods and if publishers provide no legal means to lend or transfer works from one to another than the owner should be able to do so by whatever means they choose. Legally this would require owners to destroy any copies they may have made, no different from other digital works (e.g. compact discs). This would immediately cover libraries who would gain the benefit of having a collection which is not consumable (library books are good for 20-30 checkouts) and could remain a public good.

I'm surprised we've made it this far into the digital age without more consumer protection in this space. PC game companies eliminated secondary markets 20 years ago and that model has expanded to nearly all other media.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#42

Post by AlbertCory »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14
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…

The much, much simpler, cheaper, and broad solution is to reduce copyright length to 10 years. Or even 15 years.

> much, much simpler, cheaper, and broad

you left out "politically doable."

There's a good reason why copyright law is as f&cked up as it is: it's the major holders of copyrights now.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#43

Post by jonhohle »

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…

> We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system.

As I mentioned in a sibling comment, extending the right of first sale to digital goods would benefit everyone without requiring a special exception for libraries.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#45

Post by knappe »

yareal wrote: post #13
blcknight wrote: post #3

I find the limits at ny libraries to be exceptionally high. Why does anyone need 25 digital books checked out at a time? That’d probably help with waitlists too. I love Libby, I want to see it survive.

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.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#46

Post by adamsb6 »

That graph of expenditures is nuts. The hold-driven purchasing is more than 50% larger than the other categories of new titles and renewals.

Does every library do this? I know when I want something popular from King County Public Library I often find that there's a weeks or months long waitlist.

But often times those popular titles are rather frivolous, only popular because they're new, and I'd be just as happy if I'd read something older.

I wonder how much it would cost to surface an in-stock recommendation in lieu of a too-popular hold whenever a user goes to request such a hold.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#47

Post by anamax »

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 IA couldn't make a digital copy and lend that instead of the physical copy.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#48

Post by Animats »

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…

> We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system.

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has, I think, such an exemption.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#49

Post by sneak »

greyface- wrote: post #22
dmbche wrote: post #8

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly bec…

People say that if public libraries didn't already exist and were proposed today as a new thing, they'd be found illegal. I agree that they've sort of lost the plot by taking this digital lending stuff seriously.

It’s the same with search engines. Look how the news aggregation business has shaken out.
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