Do you ever feel frustrated when you go to reserve a new bestselling eBook or Audiobook and see how long you’ll have to wait? It’s frustrating for us, too! High demand, increasing costs, and restrictive licensing models are creating an eBook crisis for public libraries.
eBook Popularity
Denver Public Library has seen a nearly 50% increase in eBook & Audiobook checkouts since 2019. We love that customers enjoy the service and want to build a sustainable collection for everyone to enjoy, but as popularity grows, the cost of keeping wait times low grows substantially. When we spend money to reduce the queues for highly popular titles, we end up with less to spend on curating a wider variety of new titles, or to keep classics and favorites in the collection. Over 50% of our eBook spending goes towards purchasing more copies for holds.
Rising Prices
We also pay much more for a single eBook license than you might expect. The average cost of a library eBook is $55 for a time-limited eBook license. An eBook "copy," or license, provides access to one checkout at a time in the same way that one person can check out a physical book at a time. Libraries purchase multiple copies to meet demand. A small group of large publishers (you may have heard them referred to as the Big Five) control the price and terms that libraries pay.
- We’d love to eliminate wait times, but it would cost the library $400,000 to purchase one copy of a current best seller for every person on the waitlist.
- DPL spends an average of $42,000 to keep the wait times of a single bestselling novel below 2 months.
Restrictive Licensing Models
eBooks and Audiobooks don't just cost more, they expire after a set period of time based on the terms of a license. Most licenses expire after two years, or 26 checkouts. We know there needs to be a fair balance, as physical books get worn out, too, but libraries are not getting full use out of these time-restricted checkouts. There are many examples of titles in our print collections that have outlived their digital counterparts.
Moving Towards Sustainability
DPL is not facing this problem alone. Public libraries across the U.S. and Canada have issued a joint statement voicing our concerns. With increased public awareness, and increased pressure from public libraries, we can convince the Big Five publishers to come to the table and talk to us.
What You Can Do:
- Speak to your elected officials and let them know libraries are facing this burden. Use the Urban Library Council's summary for advocacy talking points!
- Use tags instead of holds to save and organize books you want to read. The library won’t need to purchase as many copies for the waitlist.
- Return a book early when you're finished to free it up for the next person. Amazon Paperwhite users must also return the book on Amazon or the Amazon app.
- If you don’t have time to read a book, suspend your holds or select deliver later so the checkout doesn't go to waste.