eReolen : hsitory and lending models

Folkebibliotekernes ebogsservice
Lending and digitisation models for
"eReolen"- the Danish public libraries'
ebook service
Mikkel Christoffersen, senior adviser
Copenhagen Libraries and eReolen
DFFU conference, October 2nd 2015

Disclaimer
Views expressed today are personal and do not
necessarily reflect the official policies of the Danish
public libraries or eReolen as association!

Me
• BA in English and Greek, Copenhagen University
• MLIS from Royal School of Library and Information Science
• 3 years of assistant professor and Ph.D. student
• Adviser at the Danish Agency for Library and Media and
Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF)
• Representative to the Member States’ Expert Group on
digitisation and digital culture, DG Connect, Luxembourg
• Senior adviser at Copenhagen Libraries
• Responsibilities include eReolen, digitisation of the
collections and the overall digital strategy

Agenda
• History
• Setup
• Status
• Lending and business models
• Statistics
• Controversy and debate
• Digitisation efforts
• The future

What is eReolen?
• eReolen is the Danish public libraries’ joint ebook and digital
audio books service
• It’s an association with all Danish public libraries as
members, an organisation with lots of paid and voluntary
employees, and a web site and Android and iOS apps
• There are 11,500 ebooks and 4,500 digital audio books
• 250+ publishers supply the material from 1000+ authors

Prelude
Basic lending models in order of lessening restrictions:*,**
1. License model: One copy one user. Mimics a physical item.
The license may have any number of loans before expiry
and the price of the license may be calculated several ways
2. Click model: ”Unrestricted use” … but not really. May be
restricted by a set number of maximum loans per year.
3. Subscription model: Real unrestricted use. Also bypasses
local restrictions. Libraries pay once a year.
* Local restrictions apply
** Models are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive

History
• eReolen opened 2011 as a Ministry of Culture co-funded
project. Most publishers joined; everything was click-based.
• After the summer of 2012 the big publishers pulled out
citing sinking sales as eReolen took off.
• The 7 biggest publishers created the alternative all-license
service EBIB and offered it to libraries, who were divided.
• EBIB was never a succes, and the main reason was both
surprising and heartening
• From late 2013 to late 2014 negotiations were held
continuously to once again join everyone on eReolen.

2012 eReolen

EBIB: The good, the bad …
• Bad: Queing is a hard sell online. ”But, dude, it’s an ebook!”
It’s just not in the media’s nature.
• Good: Controlling costs was a dream!
• Bad: EBIB had no real promotion or other content. It didn’t
”take” with librarians.
• Good: Promotional, educational work by librarians is still
essential in an online world!
• Ugly: Libraries built up a digital stockpile of un-used digital
loans. Bizarre and expensive.

eReolen; hardly the victor
Number of
loans Nov-
2011 to
Nov-2014

Unique users / Unique titles loaned
22-10-2015
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Nov/11
Dec/11
Jan/12
Feb/12
Mar/12
Apr/12
May/12
Jun/12
Jul/12
Aug/12
Sep/12
Oct/12
Nov/12
Dec/12
Jan/13
Feb/13
Mar/13
Apr/13
May/13
Jun/13
Jul/13
Aug/13
Sep/13
Oct/13
Nov/13
Dec/13
Jan/14
Feb/14
Mar/14
Apr/14
May/14
Jun/14
Jul/14
Aug/14
Sep/14
Oct/14
Nov/14
Unikke lånte titler
Unikke lånerkort

Titles available / Unique titles loaned
22-10-2015
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
nov-11
dec-11
jan-12
feb-12
mar-12
apr-12
maj-12
jun-12
jul-12
aug-12
sep-12
okt-12
nov-12
dec-12
jan-13
feb-13
mar-13
apr-13
maj-13
jun-13
jul-13
aug-13
sep-13
okt-13
nov-13
dec-13
jan-14
feb-14
mar-14
apr-14
maj-14
jun-14
jul-14
aug-14
sep-14
okt-14
nov-14
Lån
Unikke lånte titler
Unikke lånerkort
Antal titler

Loans per user
22-10-2015
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
Lån pr. bruger

The old eReolen
• Bad: Losing a boat-load of great content from the big
publishers turned librarians off. It didn’t take with them.
• Maybe good: Is an ebook-platform with everything non-
commercial possible today if librarians go for it?
• Good: The catastrophe raised a new generation of digital
audiobooks listeners, but that’s beside the point today
• Good: Controlling costs became easier, because there were
fewer and fewer patrons … which is actually bad.
• Ugly: A dwindling crowd of desperate users searched
frantically for new content.

The union
• In early 2014, eReolen became an association
• All Danish libraries are members
• One size fits all
• Good for taking responsibility, learning, knowledge
sharing and as negotiating partner
• Great for digitisation efforts
• In early 2015, the big publishers came back, because an
accord was reached; a compromise
• The digital audio books were wholly integrated with
surprising effects

The compromise
• eReolen acknowledges that publishers need to protect their
markets; especially for new titles
• Publishers acknowledge that eReolen does not want the
license model as the major model
• Most new titles are put in a license model for the first 6
months, then moved to a click model
• Some start in the click model right away, a few exceptions
never leave the license model (steady sellers)
• Licenses have 4 loans. The price of the licens is retail price.
• Licenses are bought nationally; loans distributed locally

The license model
• Invented by HarperCollins in the US
• One copy one user with a set amount of loans
• Harper-Collins 26, in Denmark 4(!)
• Denmark may have the most liberal ebook models but they
are also the most expensive!
• ”Denmark is a different kind of market!” Well, in Estonia
they get 20. In Slovenia 52.
• Mimics a physical book and with a fixed loan period
• Librarians were wrong about the model initially

HarperCollins quiz
• Librarians predicted that the Harper-Collins model would
exhaust the 26 loans* very quickly and bankrupt the library
buying new licenses. However, after more than 18 months
only eight titles were exhausted. Seven of them were by the
same author. Who?
* 26 was picked (probably), because the loan period is two
weeks and so 26 loans is a year.

Agatha Christie!
Only the Bible and Shakespeare
have been published in more
editions
1 bn. Sold in English. Another
billion in non-English
HarperCollins bought the rights in
2010

Also …
• A broad-based expert group was established with eReolen,
publishers and libraries in January 2015
• How can we promote the use of the back catalogue and
move attention and use away from the new titles?
• In June and more so in August 2015 the big publishers
publicly complained that there was too little use of their
new titles, too much use of the back catalogue and generally
declining sales
• People select available things and will not queue up or buy
like they’re supposed to do

Prices
• For all loans: 1,50 DKK to eReolen, 1,50 DKK to Publizon
• Licenses: Retail price for 4 loans. 1 loan costs retail price / 4.
We don’t buy licenses costing more than 135 DKK. E.g. a
license is 100 DKK; each loan is 25 + 3 DKK.
• Click: Fixed priced based on age. 0-6 months 14,50 DKK, 7-
24 months 13,00 DKK, 24+ months 10,50 DKK (+ 3 DKK all)
• Subscription: Still experimental. Libraries pay one sum for
some part of a publisher’s catalogue. Typically everything
except new stuff. Price is based on this years use.

The association ”eReolen”
Board
Editorial
group
Support Selection*
Project
coordination Negotiation
team
General assembly

Setup
Publisher Data well
Selection OPAC eReolen
Publizon
Book sellers
National
Bibliography
An offer

Loans monthly ebooks

Number of ebooks

Unique users monthly

The data horror show
• We use patron library ID numbers
• Patron library ID numbers are almost always identical to the
their social security number
• The law is very, very, very strict when it comes to the use of
social security numbers
• Getting data, working with data, correlating data from
different systems is a nightmare
• Who are the users? Are they identical to the physical users?
Do we create new users?

Time of day
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
05 -
06
06 -
07
07 -
08
08 -
09
09 -
10
10 -
11
11 -
12
12 -
13
13 -
14
14 -
15
15 -
16
16 -
17
17 -
18
18 -
19
19 -
20
20 -
21
21 -
22
22 -
23
23 -
24
00 -
01
01 -
02
02 -
03
03 -
04
04 -
05
Antal
Tidspunkt
Udlån fordelt på tidspunkt
Total

Gender
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
Kvinde Mand
Antal
Køn
Udlån fordelt på køn
Total

Gender and media use
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000
Kvinde
Mand
Antal
Køn
Udlån fordelt mellem køn og udlånsmedie
E-bog
Lydbog

User age
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
< 15 år 16-19 år 20-24 år 25-29 år 30-34 år 35-39 år 40-44 år 45-49 år 50-54 år 55-59 år 60-64 år > 65 år #VÆRDI!
Antal
Alder
Udlån fordelt på alder
Total

Status October 2015
• eReolen has taken off again to the joy of some and the
horror of others.
• As an interesting aside, nobody can stop the freight train of
digital audio books!
• Once again newspapers and cultural news shows often
feature publishers, library people and talk of eReolen and
more generally, what is the role of the public library and
where is the ebook market going and with whom?
• However! This is all or mostly about adult fiction

Politiken
August 31st 2015
The story was followed
by several other media,
press releases, open
letters and what-nots

Status cont.
• eReolen is mostly fiction and non-fiction of a non-scholarly
nature (hobbies, self-help, popular history etc.)
• We are not offered series such as Gyldendal Business
• Plenty of drama just dealing with adult fiction and children’s
books
• The growing problem with primary schools
• The growing problem with students
• The battle for digital rights waged right now

Other questions
• Could we go back to the Dark Ages (i.e. last year)? Yes
• Would we want to? No
• What would we do?
• Narrow literature
• Indie authors
• Anglo-American ebooks
• Is it entirely up to us? No
• So everything’s fine now? No … some big publishers are
unhappy (but 200 smaller ones are not)

Cont.
• Public libraries have encouraged reading and promoted
literature for a century
• Reading is under pressure from other media that do not show
the same beneficial effects that reading does!
• Reading is the skill that underlies most other skills!
• We’re just an app among many other brightly coloured apps
• If users don’t get what they want, they move. If there is no
eReolen or the offer is terrible, do they move to commercial
alternatives or do they move to other media?
• What happens to reading and Danish literature and language?

Primary schools
• Some primary schools do not seem to understand that
eReolen is not supposed to be used for ”class sets”
• Pretty evident from use statistics
• Schools move costs to the public library and in any case
eReolen contracts are only for ”normal library use”
• Projects to address the situation is about to be launched

Students
• A bit of a spill-over effect
• Twice a year public libraries are attacked by swarms of
students of various kinds
• We don’t have the necessary ebooks in Danish
• But we have lots and lots of British/American ebooks
• Can we digitise our way out of this and design models that
are mutually beneficial for publishers and libraries?

Normal digitisation efforts
• We want to transform the library in step with the changing
reading habits of users
• This requires ebooks and a digitally available back catalogue
• We worry about the stability of the supply
• No digital lending rights and changing policies from
publishers
• We have two models in mind: Collaboration with publishers
for newer stuff. Collective agreements or collaboration for
the older stuff.

The potential

Digitising & windows-based
lending models
• With wildly fluctuating, seasonally based demands for some
scholarly titles, none of our existing lending models are any
good, because they’re designed to deal with different issues
• Public libraries do not strive to be neither main nor
subsidiary branche to research libraries
• We’ve come up with a model called the loan window model

The loan window model
• For titles that are wildly popular once or twice a year, we
want to digitise them if they are not available as ebooks
already.
• Then we specify windows of time where we can make them
available – say May & June, November & December
• The model for these windows could be a variation of the
license model with shorter loans
• How many sales would this lose for the publishers?

Thank you!
… for making it all the way to here.
Questions and comments are always welcome at:
Mikkel Christoffersen
Mob. +45 2049 1885
c45c@kff.kk.dk

eReolen : hsitory and lending models

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