E-books at libraries are huge hit, worrying publishers

Over the past two decades, electronic books have taken off as a way to read on smartphones and e-readers like the Kindle. Digital books are sold online, typically for less than their physical counterparts. They’ve also found popularity in public library systems, where cardholders can download multiple e-books and audiobooks to their devices without leaving home. But, as with hardback library books, there can also be weekslong waits and the inability to extend loan times for indemand titles.

And while there are technically an infinite number of copies of digital files, e-books also work differently. When a library wants to buy a physical book, it pays the list price of about $12 to $14, or less if buying in bulk, plus for services like maintenance. An e-book, however, tends to be far more expensive because it’s licensed from a publisher instead of purchased outright, and the higher price typically only covers a set number of years or reads.

That means Prince’s recently released memoir The Beautiful Ones recently had a four-week wait for the e-book in San Francisco. Librarygoers in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County were waiting 13 weeks to download Jia Tolentino’s book of essays, Trick Mirror.

Library e-book waits, now often longer than for hard copies, have prompted some to take their memberships to a new extreme, collecting library cards or card numbers to enable them to find the rarest or most popular books, with the shortest wait.

A library typically pays between $40 and $60 to license a new e-book adult title, which it can then loan out to one patron at a time, mimicking how physical loans work. Each publisher offers different payment models. Under one, a library only has an e-book for two years or 52 checkouts, whichever comes first. Another agreement covers 26 checkouts per book.

Unlike with physical books, one library system will have an OverDrive system for all its individual branches, creating a single collection of titles they share.

Maintaining these collections is expensive. In 2017, libraries spent 27 percent of their collection budgets on electronic materials — which include e-books, databases and other digital content — versus

54.8 percent on print. That’s up from 16.7 percent spent on electronic content five years before that, according to data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which handles federal funding for public libraries. “It’s a tremendous amount of work for our collection librarians to manage the e-book collection, as titles are expiring every day and they have to decide to repurchase or to let it go,” said Jennifer Tormey, who manages technical services at the Des Moines Public Library.

Even with the higher prices, some publishers are balking at the popularity of library e-books, saying they may be hurting business.

Macmillan, one of the five largest publishers in the United States, started enforcing a new embargo on e-book sales to public libraries this month. Libraries are only allowed to buy a single e-book version of its new titles until eight weeks after their release. Then they can buy more.

In a letter announcing the change, Macmillan CEO John Sargent said library loans were “cannibalizing sales.” The company declined to comment further.