I finally had a chance to skim through the recent study done by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC on eBooks, Turning the page: The future of eBooks. A full description of the study is below. I immediately searched for the word library/libraries in the document and found only 7 references, most to a personal library on one’s ebook reader. But, there was a statistic related to borrowing ebooks from libraries. The question was asked, how important are the following features of an ereader for you?
approximately 24% – 32% responded that “lending service from a library” was important to them. The responses were from 4 countries (UK, Germany, Netherlands, and US) with the US having the highest rate – 32% (see page 21 of the report for the chart). It’s not 100%, where we librarians would like it, but 32% isn’t a bad start. Unfortunately, my skimming of the document didn’t uncover any suggestions to publishers or eReader vendors about how to best work with libraries to accomplish the lending of eBooks. And why would it be a focus when the need for an integrated eBook store was a much greater need of the 1,000 survey respondents.
From the website – This new study examines trends and developments in the eBooks and eReaders market in the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany, and discusses major challenges and key questions for the publishing industry worldwide. It also identifies market opportunities and developments for eBooks and eReaders, and makes recommendations for publishers, traditional retailers, online retailers, and intermediaries.
Given that publishers, internet bookstores, and companies that manufacture eReaders have high expectations for the digital future of the book industry, the study asks if a new generation of eReaders may, at last, achieve the long-awaited breakthrough that lures consumers away from paper and ink.
Via Sue Polanka’s No Shelf Required blog
I wonder if library lending would be a priority to more respondents if more e-books were available from libraries and if the interface for finding those books were more user friendly. I recently considered getting a second e-reader just so I could access e-books from the library. But when I checked out the books available from my library, I found little that I was interested in borrowing and I found the interface painful to use, making this feature very low priority until something changes.
Vonda – tell me this – if your library had a huge library of eBooks to borrow, and you could do so over the web, would you ever buy eBooks ?
Howard – I don’t see how this would be any different than library lending with paper books. Before my e-reader, I still bought paper books despite them being available from the library.
Library borrowing is inconvenient – you have to wait for popular books to become available and then you have to read them when it is available within the lending period. Plus, I like to have my own copy of the books that I like.
For the books that really interest me and for the authors that I know I enjoy, I would never bother with the library. Where the library comes in handy is for trying books by authors I haven’t read before that look like they have potential, but that haven’t quite convinced me to take the risk and spend money on them. Samples help me rule out books that I know I won’t like because of the writer’s style, but ultimately, I like a book based on how characters and plot develop and how the author brings the story to its conclusion. I can’t judge this by the first chapters. A lot of times, these books disappoint me. Occasionally, they wow me. Unfortunately, before purchase, I can’t tell which ones are which and I can’t afford to buy everything. So I am sure I am missing out on the “wows” and also on future books by those authors.
I understand why publishers fear library lending and I doubt their position will change, but I am not convinced that they would lose money in sales in the long run. For me, I would be able to discover those surprises that I might have otherwise missed. Not only that, but I might buy my own copy, gift a copy to friends/family, and/or invest in future works by that author without the same hesitation I had at first.
The greatest battle for me as a reader is finding the really good material. Since what I like is not necessarily what anyone else likes, it can be a challenge. I don’t hesistate to spend the money on the good stuff if I can find it. I wonder how many of the paper books on my shelves today would have gone unread by me if I had never borrowed a book from a library or a friend. I know I would have missed out on much of them and I wouldn’t be the reader I am today.
While I love e-books so much I don’t want to go back to paper, this particular aspect of the industry makes me fear for the future of reading altogether. People learn to love books from other people. When lending is not an option, future readers may be lost.
Publishers definitely seem to want to kill the library as an institution and make sure everyone pays for every book they read. And the few options for libraries, like Overdrive, are way to expensive for a shitty collection.
And certainly for me, being someone raised amongst devoted library users and one whose fiction reading is 90% from libraries I am quite concerned. Doubly so for the parts of the population who simply cannot afford to buy every book they want to read. It’s going to deny access to a large portion of the population.
Frankly I feel laws regarding libraries need to be revised in this digital age.
The next couple of years will be telling as the world goes more digital. Example, Netflix will phase out physical DVD shipments within next two years and will go streaming only. Perhaps ebooks will be streamed from the cloud for a monthly subscription, serving multiple users simultaneously. Will public libraries go back to being subscription libraries? Who works all this out? How much clout do libraries have? I too am worried about what becomes of our public libraries that have always served everyone for no fee. I borrow ebooks from 3 library systems–my local which has small collection, a nearby system (for $30 annual fee) that has a larger collection and the NYPL collection which has 16,000 ebooks but a torrent of users too. Some popular books have more than 30 users waiting. I also purchase some selected ebooks, but prefer not to being retired and on fixed income. Free books are an important element in my eLibrary too. I know lots of people who have gone to the Kindle. They are not at all concerned that they don’t have access to library digital books. It is a vicious circle — without demand for library ebooks we will not feel justified to build larger collections, then we lose lots of people because our collections are small. We need some competition with Overdrive and with that awful Adobe DRM system that makes us all jump through complicated loops just to use the library ebooks. It should be as easy as Netflix streaming.
@Howard
Vonda says yes. But for me the answer is a resounding no, I wouldn’t pay for e-books I can get for free at the library.
But are you implying that publishers and librarians should artificially protect the Kindle?
Peter – I agree with you. If, in ten years time, I can just browse to my city library and borrow, online, any one of thousands, even millions, of eBooks – then why on earth would I buy one ?
My point is that from a commercial point of view there is clearly a conflict here for the Publishing business model. If they allow Libraries to hold a huge database of eBooks for lending online, then who on earth will buy them ? It makes no sense whatsoever.
I am not sure what the solution is – but one thing I know is libraries are seriously mistaken in thinking they can survive as is. Publishers