From The Bookseller:
Penguin UK is now withholding the supply of its new e-book releases to its library suppliers in the UK, following the same decision taken by Penguin US earlier in the week.
Meanwhile, Penguin US has announced it will restore its supply of backlist titles for e-book lending to Amazon until the end of the year, while the retailer and publisher work with library supplier Overdrive to address Penguin’s concerns over copyright security.
Meanwhile, according to the School Library Journal, the ALA is saying:
The American Library Association is calling Penguin’s decision to deny libraries the ability to buy new releases in digital format an “insult to libraries when we have been publishers’ most valuable customer for years.”
Carrie Russell, ALA’s director of the OITP Program on Public Access to Information, responded by saying that libraries create readers who borrow books-regardless of format. And those readers also buy books. In fact, Russell says, a recent study of library patrons indicates that 40 percent of regular library users’ end up purchasing a book previously borrowed from the library.
“Readers come to the library to learn about ereaders and ebooks, Russell says. “We even have librarians going to Best Buy and other outlets to teach new ereader customers how to download books. We enable the ebook market.”
ALA did say it was pleased to learn that Penguin planned to reinstitute access to library ebooks in the Kindle format through OverDrive. “This is a big step in addressing challenges libraries would have faced in denying access to library patrons,” Russell says. “Unfortunately, Penguin has not lifted the embargo (or waiting period) for access to new future releases in ebook format, leaving libraries in a quandary about when they’ll be able to provide access to the latest titles requested by their patrons.”
Russell went on to say that libraries pay publishers more for ebooks than print books. “Library spending on ebooks has doubled or even tripled over the last year,” she says. “New York Public Library alone is spending $1 million a year on ebooks.”
Regarding the withdrawal of ebooks from Amazon’s “Get for Kindle” program, a statement by Amazon, reported in the same Bookseller article, indicates that this might have resulted from a screw-up by OverDrive:
“Penguin has subsequently been informed by Amazon that it had not been consulted by Overdrive about the terms of Penguin’s agreement with Overdrive. Amazon has undertaken to work with Penguin and Overdrive between now and the end of the year to address Penguin’s concerns.
