Every time you take out a library e-book, there’s a cost associated with it. Those costs are raising concerns about how libraries can afford to expand and even maintain their collections now and in the future.
Physical copies of books are purchased and can be lent out over and over again, without any additional costs to the library, thanks to a provision in copyright laws called the “first sale doctrine,” Dianne Coan, the acting deputy director for Fairfax County Libraries, told WTOP.
But e-books are different: “Electronic titles are not owned like physical copies are owned. Instead, they’re licensed like software,” said Coan.
She explained that the e-books are licensed for a specific amount of time, and that can vary depending on the publisher.
Coan said the primary publishers in the United States tend to use a 24-month licensing model.
“So after 24 months, we have to relicense those books,” said Coan.
Maintaining or expanding the books in a library’s collection “has become so much more difficult than it should be, because we cannot keep the books and so we have to repurchase,” Coan said, adding that libraries have “a finite amount of funding.”
FFXNow first reported on the issue during a joint meeting between the Fairfax County Public Library Board of Trustees and the county’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
Coan explained the issue is one that libraries across the country are facing, and that the American Library Association and the Urban Libraries Council are working on finding what the ULC calls “sustainable library access to digital content.”
Authors are caught in the middle of the pricing and licensing model for electronic materials, said Coan.
“Books won’t be published if people aren’t making money from them,” she said. “We don’t want to do away with profit, but we would like to sustain our collections in a meaningful manner (to continue) offering great literature to our communities.”
But, if there’s no change to the licensing payment structure, “I’m very concerned that at some point that we, as libraries, are going to be priced out of that market,” she said.
Last year, the Fairfax County Library system had a budget of $1.2 million for electronics.
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