In March, Alan Inouye, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy, traveled to France to discuss the U.S. library ebook lending ecosystem at the Salon du Livre (in English, the “Paris Book Fair”). There, he served on a lively digital book panel along with Johanna Brinton, a business development executive from OverDrive and Maja Thomas, who is the former senior vice president at Hachette Book Group.

1. Library Ebook Lending in the USA
Salon du Livre (Paris Book Fair)
Sponsored by the French Ministry of
Culture and Communications
March 24, 2014
Alan S. Inouye
American Library Association

2. Agenda
• Why are we here?
• Engaging and learning
• Challenges and opportunities
• The bigger picture: (E)book lending and the
role of libraries
• Questions
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3. A Bit of History
• Origins of the library ebook lending problem in
the USA and why it is such a controversy
• U.S. copyright law: For print books, first sale
doctrine enables library lending and much more
• Libraries have considerable discretion with print
books to use as needed for public purposes
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4. A Bit of History (2)
• Ebooks are available primarily through licensing
arrangements—with many constraints
• Fundamental change in control and operations
– Licensing terms / digital rights management
– Role of distributors
– Public libraries: Public policy is now a matter of
private contracting
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5. Library Crisis:
2011 into 2012
• In wake of HarperCollins decision from spring
2011 – initiation of 26 circulation model
• Simon & Schuster, Macmillan out of library
ebook market; Hachette BG offers only backlist
• Penguin pulls back from library ebook market
• Random House imposes big price increase
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6. ALA Strategy: Engagement
• Many possible avenues to pursue; lots of advice
• Focus energy; ALA has limited resources
• What would have value in the long run?
• Conclusion: Direct engagement with publishers
– Later, expanded to publishing ecosystem
– Always subject to revision
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7. Two Plus Years
• ALA leadership visits to NYC:
– 8 multi-day trips
• Conferences: ALA, PLA, AAP, BEA, DBW
• Communications
– Publications
– Articles, op-eds, ―Open Letter to Publishers,‖ media
and communications toolkit, Authors for Library
Ebooks campaign
– Informal
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8. Publisher Perspectives
• Start: Sales displacement, friction, security
• Large, complex, multinational organizations
• Libraries 101: Library marketing staff v. digital
business staff and general managers
– Misconceptions
– Fears (library and non-library based)
• Problem: supporting many platforms/models
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9. Publisher Perspectives (2)
• Publishers often perceived value of ebook
higher than print book
• The distributor black box
• The megaplayers: Amazon, Apple, and Google
• Local public library just around the corner for
publishers = New York Public Library
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10. Library Perspectives
• Start: Unfairness, hostility
• Publishers are real people
• Publishing 101: Didn’t know much about
publishing marketplace, and digital publishing
– Even more difficult because of the rapidly evolving
marketplace
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11. Library Perspectives (2)
• Making the business case v. library needs
• More than publishers: authors, distributors,
retailers, and readers
• Libraries far from homogeneous too
• More than ―libraries‖ – state libraries,
cooperatives, …
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12. Big Five Current Status
• HarperCollins
• Penguin Random House
– Penguin
– Random House
• Hachette Book Group
• Macmillan
• Simon & Schuster
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13. Some Issues
• Progress in 2013, but…
• Pricing
• Business models: Too many yet too few
• Remaining restrictions on availability
– Frontlist
– Pilots
– Consortia
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14. Some Issues (2)
• Facilitating sales: How far should libraries go?
• Library-developed platforms
• Intermediary platforms – transferring to another
• Archiving / preservation
• Privacy
• And more
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15. Value Proposition of Library
Ebook Lending: For Publishers
• Analog to digital: Fundamentally changes the value
proposition
• Libraries represent direct sales; especially helpful for the
backlist and mid-sized/smaller publishers
• Ebook discovery/exposure via physical buildings
– Decline in physical outlets; rise of Amazon; B&N?
– Increasing possibilities of libraries as sales outlets?
• Discovery /exposure: The ―growth‖ area?
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16. Libraries: Facilitating Ebook
Discovery and Exposure
• Analogies from print book world still in play
• Leveraging the digital environment
– Library Reads
– Illinois Author Project
– Orange County (Florida) Shake It app
– Gimme (a clue), Scottsdale (Arizona) library
– Digital review copies (Edelweiss, Net Galley)
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17. The Evolving Library
• Library as publisher
– Promotes community engagement & (digital) literacy
– Expansion of self-publishing phenomenon
• Reframing: The publishing ecosystem
– Implications and possibilities for libraries
– And then more than ebooks…
– Towards reinventing the future of libraries
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18. Think Beyond Replicating the
Book Model in the Ebook World
Reader PublisherLibrary/
Bookseller
Author
(& Agents)
Distributor
Reader
Publisher
Library/
Bookseller
Author
(& Agents)
Distributor
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19. Discussion - Questions
Alan S. Inouye
ALA Office for Information Technology Policy
Washington, D.C., USA ainouye@alawash.org
202-628-8410
Resources
• American Libraries E-Content Blog
• American Libraries Supplement on
Digital Content
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