Friday 9 September 2011

ebooks on borrowed time | Books | The Guardian

ebooks on borrowed time

HarperCollins says US libraries can lend its ebooks only 26 times as print books have to be replaced after that

New Kindle 3 reader
Printed books last a lot longer than 26 loans, say librarians. Photograph: AP

Ebooks were supposed to be indestructible. Where you had disk-space, you had literature – in perpetuity. Which is bad news for publishers now deprived of that extra round of sales revenue engendered by books being dropped in baths.

HarperCollins has got wise to this: it has announced that US libraries will be allowed to lend ebooks only up to 26 times. Its sales president, Josh Marwell, believes that's only fair: 26, he claims, is the average number of loans a print book would survive before having to be replaced. HarperCollins UK won't rule out applying this ebook strategy to British libraries - and should it do so, it can expect a frustrated reaction. "Clearly, printed books last a lot longer than 26 loans," says Philip Bradley, vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

His claim seems to stand up: in a YouTube video, two librarians from Oklahoma took a random selection of five HarperCollins bestsellers from their shelves and showed they were all in perfectly readable condition. A pristine copy of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, borrowed 48 times, would have been needlessly re-bought, while Stuart Woods's Swimming to Catalina, still going at 120 loans, would be on its fifth, pointless reincarnation.

Comments in chronological order (Total 84 comments)

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  • LePendu

    6 March 2011 8:09PM

    ebooks on borrowed time

    In what possible way does the content of this article justify the title? Is it going to stop me buying them? Or tracking down freebies? No, it's not.

    Cobblers.

  • bbmatt

    6 March 2011 8:27PM

    We have books around now which are up to 1000 years old. How on earth could a digital book last that long?

    The *only* way it could, would be to assume humanity will remain in the 'digital realm' for another 1000 years. It would also require that the social-political landscape in areas which currently promote literacy and knowledge remain stable.

    It's an interesting concept. Could a digital book survive 1000 years to be discovered and then actually accessed and read?

    Would the device the digital book is on, lets say, a Kindle, survive 1000 years?

    A book requires only light to read. A digital book requires electricity & light, an operating system.

    Printed books will be with us... for as long as we can use our hands.
    Digital books? Who knows.
    For now, I embrace the technology. I have my Kindle, I have my printed books - they both convey information. It's all good.

  • EFW48

    6 March 2011 9:08PM

    The publishing execs have the seen the writing on the (digital) wall.

    We have more to read now than time to read it.

  • kamikz

    6 March 2011 9:16PM

    We have stone tablets around now which are up to N years old. How on earth could ink pen last that long?

    The *only* way it couldn't, would be to assume that humanity all behave like bbmatt for a few days, It would also require that people are dumb enough to not see the interwoven-ness of technology that propelled technology advancement in all directions, including medicine, which when bbmatt or his/her loved ones is on the verge of dying, we must not let him have an MRI or anti-biotic but only let that patient bleed out the illness.

    It's an interesting concept. Could another idiot who claimed that printed books wouldn't outlast the almighty stone tablet be standing by his claim 1000 years ago? And can this type of idiot repeat?

    A stone tablet requires only finger touches to read, A book requires s* load of process to make, and a printing company operating in black such a product.

    Stone tablets will be with us... For as long as we can feel with our touch.
    Printed books? Who knows.
    For now, I embrace the death lord that clears away the L7's. I have my printed books, I have my stone tablets. They both convey information and my year-round U-Haul plan allows me to lend my tablets to my friends. It's all good.

  • BladeAbroad

    6 March 2011 9:18PM

    @LePendu
    It's a play on words. Because books are borrowed from libraries. And those stocked in libraries are on... borrowed time... it's clever.

  • triggerfish999

    6 March 2011 9:25PM

    It's a tricky business innit. If you have one copy of a book you can only lend it out exclusively one time at a time. Maybe the digital licensing should restrict lending on that basis (i.e. you pay for every lent instance of an ebook). Publishers (and authors) are right to worry that ebooks can be copied and lent simultaneously n times without due consideration of what this means for how royalties are calculated and paid. I reckon a new royalties model needs to be worked out for ebooks.

  • GordonBlair

    6 March 2011 9:25PM

    Surprise, surprise, Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp* trying to screw everyone again.
    Next on the agenda, destroy the BBC.
    Sky subscribers - hang your heads in shame, you feed this malign beast.

    * For anyone who doesn't get the reference, Newscorp own Harpercollins.

  • brokenbones

    6 March 2011 9:27PM

    Ohhhh.... and the publishing industry, poised on the edge of either accepting or rejecting the inevitable future "does a music industry" and tries to impose idiotic limits on their stuff.

    Even if printed books could only be leant 4 times, it'd be no justification for doing this. The whole point of new technology is it can do new things. Industries that try to limit or undermine new inventions will fail.

  • snick

    6 March 2011 9:30PM

    No surprise. Big business is always looking for a way to maximize profit. I would love to know how they came up with the figure 26. I don't read books in the e-book format too often, but if I am sick and can't get to the library, it is nice. Also, I love being able to bring several books at a time loaded onto my netbook when I go on vacation. HarperCollins is assuming that every download gets read, and they are assuming some pretty harsh treatment of library books! Considering the age of some of my father's books (he has one that is handwritten and is over 400 years old, still in great shape), it is clear that this is a money grab and has no basis in reality, other than the fact that like most businesses, publishers have seen declining profits.

    Plenty of free e-book sites out there. I like Planet Ebook for classics. Project Gutenberg is good too. It might not help the libraries, but it can help you if you want an e-book but like me are opposed to buying something that has no tangible form.

  • Tiananmen

    6 March 2011 9:52PM

    I think the fairest model might be for a library to pay a flat fee for getting access to a e-book, say £5. Then for the library to pay 10p per loan.
    Transaction costs could be significantly reduced by making direct debit payments to the various publishers based on the total for all books.

    I think as the industry develops pricing will become more sophisticated than 'rebuy every 26 loans' No need to panic.

  • SuntoryBoss

    6 March 2011 10:28PM

    Surely the first question should be "What is your claim that books need to be replaced every 26 loans based on"?

    From the library journal article it sounds like some vague figure Harper have arrived at themselves.

    If it's reasonable then they may have a point, but the fact they don't appear to have shown their working makes me think it's nonsense. As does the fact I've had books out that have been loaned out huge numbers of times and they've been in good condition.

  • elfwyn

    6 March 2011 10:31PM

    @ pandemoniana

    This is clearly horseshit from HC. I've spent a great deal of my adult life in libraries and back in the pre-barcode days when you had those little sheets of paper that had due dates on them. I'm pretty sure that many of them had many more than 26 date stamps on them. And I've also borrowed books that dated from the 60, 50s and before.

    Hey, you know what, library books still have little sheets of paper with due dates on them (and barcodes too). A while ago I was stock-taking in the library where I worked and found a Miss Read book that had been on the shelf since the 1980s and was on its seventh sheet of paper. I didn't count how many times it'd been borrowed but it must have been close on a hundred.

    It was getting a bit tatty, though - unsurprisingly.

  • johninleeds

    6 March 2011 10:40PM

    26 * 2 weeks = 52 weeks... or one year.

    Sounds to me like (based on a typical two week loan), HC want libraries to enter into yearly payment arrangements (not necessarily unreasonable, but gives a root to the otherwise apparently random figure of 26).

  • nosanityclause

    6 March 2011 10:44PM

    Well, that's a big f*ing surprise. HarperCollins following the example of the rest of the Newscorp stable and attempting to squeeze every drop of revenue they can from the people who buy their products.

    Not content with a general failure to pass on the savings they make in publishing a book electronically rather than by printing, binding and transporting them, they now wish to dictate how long the books lasts?! This game of silly b*ggers is typically short-sighted and will do nothing to engender anything other than ill-feeling from end users of their products.

    Like many students, I used my books a lot more than 26 times each when I was an undergraduate. Of the ones I still use two decades later, none of them have required replacement due to any deterioration in their condition. Nor do any of the paperbacks I've bought over the past couple of decades (and the only damage to the hardbacks is a bit of scuffing and stretching of the dustcovers).

    I wonder how long I'll be able to read the Kindle editions of classics and the range of PDF e-books I have stored on my PC and other devices, how long the hardware will last before failure and how long the software will continue to be supported: and what conversion methods will be required or available when they are no longer supported.

  • pandemoniana

    6 March 2011 10:50PM

    @elfwyn

    I stand corrected but my own library has dispensed with the date stamp sheets and make do with the barcode only. But the point still stands, the figure is clearly a nonsense.

    @johninleeds

    You're probably right but the only proposal I'm willing to countenance from Murdoch is if he decides to cut his wizened, twisted throat live on Sky News. Aren't libraries under the cosh enough without having to pay a tithe to that sleazy old git?

  • Dazzajc

    6 March 2011 10:54PM

    Maybe the statistics that the average loan rate for books that had to be replaced is 26, but is that discounting (the possible majority of) books that do not get replaced and which may have been loaned many times more? Also, what type of average is being quoted; mean, median or modal? It is very easy to lie with statistics!

  • paedant

    6 March 2011 11:16PM

    Do UK libraries "lend" ebooks? If so, how? If they lend a proper book then that book isn't available to other borrowers until it's returned. How do you return an ebook? Take in your ereader and show the library it's been deleted?

    Releasing books in digital format is commercial suicide for publishers and, more importantly, authors. It's as bad for the "rights holders" as were CDs and DVDs - release your product in an easily copyable and downloadable format and then all that's left is for you to sign up to FACT - and wonder where your income stream has gone.

  • BSspotter

    6 March 2011 11:36PM

    Its sales president, Josh Marwell,

    believes

    that's only fair: 26, he claims, is the average number of loans a print book would survive before having to be replaced.

    It's a belief statement so it's BS.

    J

    osh Marwell needs to show the evidence.

  • DevonView

    6 March 2011 11:40PM

    The GREED of the Murdoch family is astounding - they are worse than the bankers!

  • OneHandWavingFree

    6 March 2011 11:59PM

    Do UK libraries "lend" ebooks? If so, how?

    Yes, some do. A little Googling seems to indicate that it stays on your device for 2 or 3 weeks and then deletes itself. What devices are included I don't know.

    It;s done over that internet thingy that seems popular these days.

  • horizon10

    7 March 2011 12:20AM

    Is there an anti-Kindle movement? If so I would like to join. I am so stuffed full of hatred for that thing. I am not a Luddite, I just cannot understand why anyone would want to read anything on one of those things. As for libraries lending out e-books, just how is that possible? How can a publisher dictate how many times an electronic manuscript is read before it is replaced? It's a total nonsense. As for the 25 times then replace rule, what bollocks. As if libraries aren't stretched enough as it is, and now with the cuts. It defies common sense. A three-year-old would be able to challenge that argument. I am just hoping, praying that the ridiculously-named Kindle goes the way of Sinclair's C5 and dies the death it deserves.

  • IcomefromtheInternet

    7 March 2011 12:30AM

    Basically in translation, never lend a book to anyone that works in publishing they clearly do not know how to look after books.

  • Stephenweaver

    7 March 2011 12:33AM

    Given the cuts in library funding, their existing books will probably have to be loaned out 26 000 times before they are retired. Yet more bullshit from greedy old Turdoch.

  • LupinP

    7 March 2011 12:48AM

    Leaving aside the question of whether 26 loans is a realistic life for a book, electronic or print, it doesn't seem unreasonable to have some sort of limit. Firstly, the books made available in digital editions will be actual or potential best sellers, from which the publisher will make most money. Secondly, best sellers are presumably those most likely to be borrowed from libraries. Thirdly, limited availability of a book in libraries is going to increase its sales, electronic or print.

    Digital Rights Management for ebooks already ensures that a library can't loan more electronic copies than it has bought (so that one can't be re-lent until it has been 'returned'), so extending the analogy to book life seems defensible.

    Of course the publishers want to protect their profits, they're not charities. At the moment they seem to have the whip hand, and apart from this library issue have been successful, so far, in imposing the agency model on ebook sales so that Amazon, for example, has to charge what the publisher demands not, as with print editions, what it can buy it for plus whatever it needs to make a profit. I think this might be defeated, as there are large countervailing market forces from the consumers who might as soon buy a real, lendable book that they can give away as an electronic one at the same price. But libraries represent, I conjecture, a small fraction of the market for best sellers, and will have to rely on arguments such as electronic availability in the library generating sales of print or electronic material to borrowers.

    This doesn't exercise me much as I don't think the total cost of what I have on my Kindle adds up to more than about £2, the rest being free Gutenberg or Google Books out-of-copyright stuff.

    To avoid any misunderstanding, I don't at all care for Murdoch.

  • Novelist

    7 March 2011 1:50AM

    In "The Time Machine" (orginal B/W version) the traveller discovers some spinning disks that relate the end of civilisation to him...

  • Jiminoz

    7 March 2011 2:02AM

    I seem to remember (well, it was before my time - probably around 1800) that when lending libraries started, the publishers complained, saying that it would eat into their reasonable profits.

    Plus ca change...

  • Josifer

    7 March 2011 3:15AM

    BladeAbroad
    6 March 2011 9:18PM

    books are borrowed from libraries. And those stocked in libraries are on... borrowed time... it's clever.


    Lame puns are not clever.

  • harrytheaardvark

    7 March 2011 3:40AM

    Is there an anti-Kindle movement? If so I would like to join. I am so stuffed full of hatred for that thing. I am not a Luddite, I just cannot understand why anyone would want to read anything on one of those things.

    @horizon10

    Maybe that's because you still live with your parents, for those of us who travel the world constantly, never staying anywhere very long and not having the strength to carry hundreds of books with us (or the baggage allowance for that matter) - the Kindle is a godsend.

  • ericpenner

    7 March 2011 4:16AM

    This makes me want to download books from torrent sites. I still buy them from Amazon and used book shops, but this kind of greed - as though selling thousands and thousands of books to US libraries isn't enough; they need to guarantee further income over the years.

    This kind of greed in the publishing company makes me wish all authors published their work on their own - free of publishers.

  • Trixr

    7 March 2011 5:34AM

    horizon10 - "ebook reader" does not necessarily = Kindle, for starters.

    I hate those things myself, because of Amazon's quaint echoing of the Steve Jobs model of only allowing you to have the stuff they want you to have. In fact, it's even worse, because they have the gall to delete stuff you've purchased if they don't like you any more.

    Anyway, rant over, ereaders are an absolute boon for those of us who are, yunno, readers. Or who read more than one book a year. My holidays used to consist of carrying literally kilos of books to keep me going. Last time I was visiting the UK, I had to get 4.5kg of books sent back home through the post. On one device, you can have literally thousands of books.

    I love my paper books, but to be frank, I'm starting to rue the day I have to move and shift all 300-odd overseas (and my book collection is only moderate, really). I could get my entire library on an ereader, with acres to spare. Something also to consider in these smaller dwellings we are starting to get.

  • Bubbletop

    7 March 2011 6:34AM

    Its economics.... Wonder how much a library pays for an e-book versus a hardback...
    The publishers need to make a profit or we wont have books. More realistically, we will soon have fewer and fewer publishers and hence a smaller range of books.

  • sowhatfollows

    7 March 2011 7:44AM

    An interesting move . if I buy an e book I expect that I own it and can use it as I see fit. But I dont and I think this needs to be made much much clearer to the purchaser. you are just renting the ebook on the suppliers terms. The library debate is a side issue to the nature of the contract on ebooks. I would like title to my copy in perpetuity please as with other goods. Oh and I would also like the right to port my copy to another device when the supplier decides not to support the exiting or I just want to use it on another device. Then I wouldn't have to buy another copy as we did when VHS changed to DVD , bluray etc.
    I dont want to rent, I want to buy, borrow, lend and sell my ebooks thanks.

  • imacurmudgeon

    7 March 2011 8:04AM

    Libraries sell off their knackered old books that aren't up to being lent out any more. I have several dog eared volumes acquired by this means for the princely sum of 30p or so.

    That's something that won't happen after 26 loans of an e-book!

  • Wilsonclan

    7 March 2011 8:17AM

    Isn't it the case in the UK (at least) that the libraries pay royalties each time a book is loaned out anyway? If this is applied to e-books, then royalties will be paid each time an e-book is loaned out. As the number of e-book loans is not dependent on the number of e-books in a library's possession, this maximises the royalties paid for the expenditure on both the library's and the publisher's parts.

    Of course, some may argue that royalties are only paid to the author, not the publisher, and that this practice would reduce the publisher's income. Well, given that most of the effort in an e-book is carried out by the author (the costs of printing and distributing an e-book being negligible), why shouldn't the author get most of the money?

    If the publishers want to make more money out of e-books, they could then negotiate contracts with the authors to recoup some of their costs, as is the practice in other branches of the entertainment industry (or so I have been led to believe).

    Another point - given libraries usually sell on their books after a certain period, will HC allow the libraries to sell on their e-books after they have been loaned out 26 times? And if the libraries are allowed to do this, will they let the rest of us do so?

  • Kerome

    7 March 2011 8:29AM

    If this is left to publishers, they will just set the bar at some very low level in order to maximise profits. It sounds like a good candidate for an inquiry and legislation - a little research surely will reveal a fair average.

    However I can see their point that ebook library lending is potentially damaging. Ebook lending is not at all analogous to normal books, as the barrier to entry to the service is much lower since there's no need to physically travel to a library. The case for ownership of an ebook is correspondingly weak - you cannot put it on a shelf, resell it easily, and most people do not re-read enough to make a solid case for ownership.

    The whole point is probably moot though, given what's about to happen to the publishing industry.

  • Wilsonclan

    7 March 2011 8:36AM

    @Bubbletop

    If the price differentials are anything like the cost of e-books on Amazon, an e-book is not much cheaper. For example, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is £2.74 for the e-book, but £3.89 for the paperback. A used copy of the paperback is 89p, but you can't get a second-hand copy of the e-book.

    Besides, less publishers is not that bad a thing. There are an increasing number of e-books that are self-published. I'm not saying the quality of the writing is all that good on all of them, but you could say the same of some hardcopy books. If all an author needs for an e-book is to have it edited and advertised, these are services that can be provided direct rather than by a publisher.

    It is entirely possible for books to be produced on a print-on-demand model (the RPG hobby survives quite nicely on this), and distribution of e-books could be done on an iTunes-like model.

    All of a sudden, the publishers seem less necessary for e-books.

  • sharkfinn

    7 March 2011 8:37AM

    I think everyone is overlooking the fundamental difference between physical libraries and digital libraries.

    Normally, you would need to go to the library, look for or request a book and either wait until it is available or take it off the shelf and have it for a limited time. As opposed to going straight to a shop and paying for it.

    Now, however, if all books are available immediately without having to GO TO the library, digital borrowing effectively becomes a free version of itunes. You would visit the library once and then NEVER SET FOOT in one again as you just take whatever you want free of charge.

    The inconvenience of VISITING a library is no longer there. Instead it becomes a choice between pay on itunes or free from a library - Hmm, which to choose?

    This changes the game entirely - it is not a LIBRARY, it effectively becomes a free for all.

  • Kerome

    7 March 2011 8:39AM

    Oh and @BladeAbroad: yes, the title is a clever play on words, but it's also misleading. eBooks are currently going from strength to strength as a category, while the headline implies that they are about to kick the bucket, which renders the cleverness rather pointless.

    A better headline would have been "ebook library lending on borrowed time" - clever AND accurate.

    Sensationalist headline writing is a blog-born habit for generating article clicks which is starting to pollute even proper journalism, and not in a good way.

  • littlepump

    7 March 2011 9:07AM

    Lupin2

    Of course the publishers want to protect their profits, they're not charities.

    Bubbletop

    Its economics.... Wonder how much a library pays for an e-book versus a hardback...The publishers need to make a profit or we wont have books. More realistically, we will soon have fewer and fewer publishers and hence a smaller range of books.

    True. but the publishing model only really works if the books ar eprinted. There is no need for publishers if books do not need to be printed (no risk, of money spent and not recuperated through the publication of books that do not sell, and therefore no reward for publishers that take that risk).

    That just leaves us with the authors and the the public. I would imagine that authors don't (on the whole) don't write to make a profit, they write because its what hey love and to earn a living (I'd argue profit seeking and income seeking are not the same). There need to be some quality control filter to make it easier to find the books that members of the public want to read, but crowd sourcing can surely do this better that publishers (see for example good reads)and at little or no cost.

    So the end result might be no more publishers and more choice of books at lower prices. it will be bad for GDP growth (a meaningless and counter productive measure) but good for society. I guess I should be cheering such a possiblity but my inner ludite somehow won't allow it.

  • humyes

    7 March 2011 9:28AM

    Except @sharkfinn that the library will have paid handsomely for the ability to lend you that ebook and they likely will only have a limmited number of 'copies' available so say three people could 'borrow' the ebook at the same time.

    So not a free for all

    Actually a pretty good way for publishers to secure legitimate paying customers rather than everyone going to the pirate bay (bay of shelves that is - see what I did there).

  • Ponytail

    7 March 2011 9:42AM

    Librarian here.
    This is how it works with e-books in my library. The library pays an amount for an e-book title, usually a one-off payment, but this depends on the seller (who is not always the publisher - libraries often use an intermediary). The model I use gives you a number of 'credits' for a copy, equal to one day of use per credit. The standard seems to be 400 credits per year, and when the new year starts, the credits go back up to 400.
    So, you could lend the book 400 times in one year, for a day each, or 200 times, for two days each, or 100 times, for four days each. Basically, 400 days worth of borrowing. The maximum for a patron is 2 weeks, but they can renew or borrow again.
    If a book is heavily borrowed, and you run low on credits before the year is up, you have the option to buy a second copy, with again, 400 credits for the year. The advantage of this, is that you don't have to buy multiple copies of a title until you are sure that it is being used.
    E-books are more expensive than the standard hardback price, but not much more, and they are never damaged, lost or kept overdue.
    So far, we have not been told that we have to replace books, but I doubt we get very many titles from HarperCollins as - and this is probably very significant - we are not a public library. The 400 credits would be sufficient for 90% of our books, this would not be the case with fiction titles.

  • LondonPenguin

    7 March 2011 10:35AM

    Do UK libraries "lend" ebooks? If so, how? If they lend a proper book then that book isn't available to other borrowers until it's returned. How do you return an ebook? Take in your ereader and show the library it's been deleted?

    Now, however, if all books are available immediately without having to GO TO the library, digital borrowing effectively becomes a free version of itunes. You would visit the library once and then NEVER SET FOOT in one again as you just take whatever you want free of charge.

    This is how it works at the London Library Consortium. You borrow an e-book from your library online for a fixed period, 14 or 21 days, and at the end of that time it "expires" and you can no longer open it on your e-reader.

    So long as you have it checked out (and assuming the library doesn't have any other copies) it isn't available for anyone else to check out.

    So it's far from a "free for all".

  • walnut

    7 March 2011 10:47AM

    @bbmatt
    "We have books around now which are up to 1000 years old. How on earth could a digital book last that long?

    The *only* way it could, would be to assume humanity will remain in the 'digital realm' for another 1000 years."

    It would also, I suspect, mean maintaining a digital standard that will allo you t to open eBook files 1000 years from hence. Ever try opening an old WordPefect 5.1 document in a modern word processor? How many flavours of Windows have come out since Windows 3.1? In-built obsolecence is a part of technological advance as much as the advances themselves. Now the codex, on the other hand...

  • walnut

    7 March 2011 10:53AM

    I suppose what I dislike most about eBooks and MP3s is that you are making literature and music into a consumable, disposable product. I've got 78s and LPs that play beautifully - but when I had to change computers, my MP3 player got v shirty indeed that my MP3s weren't suitably 'licenced' anymore - and when my membership of one MP3 store that shall remain nameless lapsed, the music bought stopped working until such time as I decide to pay them £5 a month minimum. Wd you buy a CD at HMV and then start a monthly Direct Debit to listen to it? Likewise, would you go to Waterstones and do the same thing with a book, expecting a knock at the door after your 26th reading? And even if they don't make the individual buy a new copy, when the formats and devices change - and they will - are you going to be allowed to convert easily and (moreover) legally? Or will you be sitting there with a bunch of Mini-discs when everyone else has an iPod?

    Nope, sticking to books, thanks.

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