The skinny on libraries and e-books
People ask us why we don't have more popular e-books in our catalog and why we don't have more copies of the hottest titles. The answers lie in the publishing houses' policies and restrictions on e-book "sales" to us.
For example, Simon and Schuster and MacMillan DO NOT yet allow libraries to purchase or lease their e-book titles. The library cannot buy or lease Steve Jobs, for example, because of Simon and Schusters' "no library sales" policy.
Random House charges libraries up to $100 for one of their ebooks, while HarperCollins only allows 26 downloads before the title must be repurchased.
Now, look at library prices compared to personal purchases of print books or e-books:
The following titles are NOT AVAILABLE for library purchase in ebook format: For example:
Random House charges libraries up to $100 for one of their ebooks, while HarperCollins only allows 26 downloads before the title must be repurchased.
Now, look at library prices compared to personal purchases of print books or e-books:
Title,Author
Publisher
|
Print price for library
List price/discount
Baker & Taylor
|
Ebook price
for library
Overdrive
|
Ebook price
for consumer
|
The $100 Start Up by Chris Guillebeau,
Random House
|
$23.00/$12.88
Hardcover
|
$69.00
|
$11.99 Amazon/Nook
|
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, Random House
|
$10.99/$6.59
Paperback
|
$53.97
|
$9.99 Amazon/Nook
|
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Random House
|
$18.00/$10.80
Paperback
|
$54.00
|
Free/$1.99 Amazon
$2.99 Nook
|
Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman, Random House
|
$26.00/$14.56
Hardcover
|
$78.00
|
$12.99 Amazon/Nook
|
My Beloved World, by Sonia Sotomayor, Random House
|
$15.00/$9.00
Paperback
|
$83.85
|
$12.99 Nook Store
(Not in Amazon)
|
Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James, Random House
|
$26.95/$15.09
Hardcover
|
$95.70
|
$9.99 Amazon/Nook
|
The following titles are NOT AVAILABLE for library purchase in ebook format: For example:
Safe Haven, Nicolas Sparks, Grand Central Publishing
Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult, Simon & Schuster
Killing Kennedy, Bill O'Reilly, Henry Holt & Co
Killing Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly, Henry Holt & Co
Not a pretty picture. Hopefully, in time, publishers will cooperated more fully with public libraries. Stay tuned.
Based on Ann Awakuni's handout written for Mountain View Public Library.
Labels: ebook information
posted by Staff of the Mendocino County Library | 12:47 PM
2 Comments:
How about older books?
And e-magazine versions of the magazines the library subscribes to? (The Milpitas CA library makes e-magazines available free to their patrons.)
Mendolynda--how much older do you mean? Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) has thousands of e-book titles available, if you are looking for classics. Finding free sources of 20 year old books is more difficult because those titles are still under copyright. Our choice of ebooks through Overdrive is limited to those titles they make available to us.
E-magazines? What a great service for Milpitas Library to offer. I will pass on your suggestion that we also make e-mags available to our membership to Mindy Kittay, the County Librarian, for her consideration.
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