Bad news for libraries on ebook lending

[gb18]

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/book-blog/bad-news-for-libraries-on-ebook...

[justsayyes]

Too bad.  I bought the NC because at the time it was the only eReader that worked with my public library.  On the other hand, my town just opened it's spanking new library last weekend and it was worth every penny of the 100s of millions of pennies that it costs. I know, I voted for tax increases to pay for it!

Truly a fantastic spot to send kids to for homework, families for reading and sharing stories, and just a general place to meet friends, family and hang out.  All of the bookstores have gone out of business in my town, so a nice library combines a great book store, family friendly small cafe, library, public meeting place, and study hall all in one.

I'd trade eBook lending for a decent physical libary in my town any day...

[Ya_Ya]

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justsayyes wrote:

I'd trade eBook lending for a decent physical libary in my town any day...

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*thumbs up*

I'd rather not have to make the choice, , but if it came down to it, I'd choose the physical library / enhanced hours, services, etc... over library lent ebooks every day of the week and twice on Sunday...

[BFCoughlin]

>>I'd trade eBook lending for a decent physical libary in my town any day...<<

Even with my Nook--which I adore--I still go to the public library every Tuesday.  Nothing beats being able to browse.  That's how I come upon gems I'd never have thought to have read.  I'll spot a magazine with an intriguing article, and I can sit down and read it.  Can't do that with an e-reader.  When most of our town was out of power for a week after a freak nor'easter in the fall, the library had power strips, wireless, and coffee, not to mention light, heat and companionship!

[doncr]

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justsayyes wrote:

... 

Truly a fantastic spot to send kids to for homework, families for reading and sharing stories, and just a general place to meet friends, family and hang out.  All of the bookstores have gone out of business in my town, so a nice library combines a great book store, family friendly small cafe, library, public meeting place, and study hall all in one.

I'd trade eBook lending for a decent physical libary in my town any day...

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I'm happy for you.  Unfortunately, in my neck of the woods, the public library is not a place you'd want to take your kids.

[catarific]

At first I hated ebook reading but now I love it except for the drawback that my battery is low and I have to power it up before I can continue.  At least with a library book or any book for that matter, you can read it at any time.  But many of us will go on a reserve list for new books rather than buy them.  I used to belong to regular book clubs and spend so much money on books I thought I would like and found that I wasted my money.  And even now, I may purchase a book at B&N or Amazon, and still I may or may not like what I chose.  So the benefit of the library is that you can take out a book and if you do not like it, you can return it.  For new books, there is a waiting list.  For new e-books, there is also a waiting list. 

What I do not understand is - there has always been the library that allowed borrowing books without having to buy them - really what is the difference if you borrow an ebook or borrow a physical book - the publisher still is not getting a sale on that item.

[moogs]

My local library has 1 paper copy of "extremely loud and incredibly close" with 5 waiting to borrow it.

They also have 22 epub copies with 156 people waiting to borrow.

If i'm number 156, i'll get the ebook in about 14 weeks.

If I was number 156 waiting for the paper edition it would be about 4 years.

Would you wait 4 years for a book or would you buy the book?

[catarific]

That's quite an exaggeration.  I have been a number 156 or more on a waiting list - and our public library in Broward County, Florida shares with other libraries in the county a number of reserved books that are sent to the various branches for those on waiting lists.  I may have waited up to three or four months - but certainly not four years.

[BeachCatFan]

It's really a shame that they are doing this. I went to our local library several times a month to check out and return books. My husband still does. However, because of vision problems, I can no longer comfortably read paper books..........so if I really want to read a certain book, I check first to see if I can download it from the library. I read too much to spend $15 or so every time I want to read a new best seller..........I love B&N, but I have no intention of going broke supporting them........LOL

[patgolfneb]

I feel like a one trick pony, posting the same thing repeatedly, but this shows how dysfunctional big business attitudes have become. Instead of looking for creative ways to deliver products at the optimum price for enhanced sales they rely on legal eagles, goverment lobbyists or any other ways they can find to protect themselves.  These methods are really the modern version of protective tarrifs. Our large business leaders aren't really businessmen anymore, they are sharp operators and numbers crunchers without the creativity to actually develop and maintain a thriving business.

[Sun_Cat]

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moogs wrote:

My local library has 1 paper copy of "extremely loud and incredibly close" with 5 waiting to borrow it.

They also have 22 epub copies with 156 people waiting to borrow.

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This made me curious about the situation at my local library system. The result sure points up differences between libraries and also makes me wonder about the comparative cost to the library of licensing a copy from Overdrive versus buying and processing a paper copy.

For Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:

Paper: 74 holds on first copy returned of 61 copies

Ebook copies: 12  (60 patrons on waiting list)

Everything else being equal, you'd have to wait much longer for the ebook than the DTB where I live.

[doncr]

The publishers don't make much from me anymore. I buy used books from sites like Half.com, scan them, read the resulting eBook/PDF, then resell them.  This also lets me read the eBook on whatever device I choose.  I've also scanned books that I've checked out from the library, read the eBook, then returned the book.  

I didn't decide to build my scanner and buy the necessary OCR/eBook software in order to screw publishers out of money (I could have bought a LOT of eBooks for the money and time I spent building this system).  I built it mainly to get electronic copies of the books in my current library here at home that aren't even available in eBook format.  Being able to use this same scanner to scan purchased used books and books from my local library to save a bit of money is just a bonus.

I can't wait for a Netflix-like subscription model to come to eBooks.  That would be perfect for me because once I read a novel, I have no further use for it.  It would also allow me to evaluate reference books completely before I decided to buy them to add to my home library (purchased used, of course).  That sort of content delivery method can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

[seacitylady]

Like one of the posters above I am in the Broward County Library system in Florida. I have never been able to figure out how the que works. I have never waited more then 3 weeks for anything. In fact I sometimes turn books back within a couple of days because I know i won't have time to read them. In the past 4 days I have gotten 7 books I only put on hold a max of 2 weeks ago. These include "In Defense of Jacob" "Incredibly Loud...", "Catherine the Great," "A Sense of Ending" & "Paris Wife." I was far down on the list for all of these. I also got the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy & "The Passage" within 10 days. Again, far down on list. On the other hand, I've have been #1 of 2 holds on an older book for nearly 6 weeks! I just don't get it. Similarly, I do still read print books & got "The Obamas" & "Private Games" with only a 2 week wait. I have found the service to be very fast & my problem is not really a problem. I am just getting material faster then I can read it & I read around 4 books a week. However, a lot of the books above have high page counts so hard to keep up.

I'm not complaining by any means! I jusr can't seem to get the hang of the timing so that so many books don't show up @ once.I usually let them sit for the full 5 days before I even download them to buy time.  Most of the books I read are the newer more popular books so I expect to wait. As mentioned I often even turn back books so someone else can have them. I then put them back on hold. I also return them as soon as I am finished. I'm beginning to think something is "broken" (but in a good way). It's just odd because of what another person who is in the same system reported as far as wait time. Given the # of holds, just based on the math I should have much longer wait times.  

[seacitylady]

Hate to tell ya 'scanner dude' but even though you may have bought the book used what you are doing is a violation of copyright law. Ever heard of Bittorrent - it is all there click, click. Yeah, that's illegal too.You may be "screwing the publishers" but I would keep the details to myself. Notice you are on the Barnes & Noble website in a monitored forum?? Not sure this is the best place to post your info.Know you are just trying to "help" but....just sayin.  I'm sure you have a great collection but you went to a lot more trouble than necessary to produce the same result.

[doncr]

Nah, I'm covered by the Fair Use exemption.  My scans are of works that I've legally aquired and are for my own personal use (they are NOT redistributed).  No digital copy protection has been circumvented so the DMCA doesn't apply.  This is no different than you being allowed to copy songs from a CD that you own to listen to on your MP3 player.

Yours truly,

Scanner Dude

[BruceMcF]

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doncr wrote:

Nah, I'm covered by the Fair Use exemption.  My scans are of works that I've legally aquired and are for my own personal use (they are NOT redistributed).  No digital copy protection has been circumvented so the DMCA doesn't apply.  This is no different than you being allowed to copy songs from a CD that you own to listen to on your MP3 player.

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However, to avoid confusing people, note that the fair use applies to while you have the book in your possession ~ scanning a book from the library, returning it to the library, and then reading it would be a copyright infringement.

Buying used books, scanning them, selling them and then reading them would also be an infringement. That is just like copying songs from a CD to your MP3 player ~ if someone lends the CD to a friend, and they are listening to the songs at the same time as their friend is, its violating copyright, since the copy is being used as a copy of the work rather than used as an alternative way to use the original copy.

The point of copyright is to let authors/artists earn their daily bread by giving them the right to say who can and cannot make a copy. Scanning for reading as an eBook while in possession of the book is still one copy in use = one copy paid for, when it was originally sold. But once they have given permission for that copy to be made, then with books in particular there is broad freedom with how that copy may then be used.

Its when the copies are used independently that the creators rights are being trampled on. That is the bittorrent case ~ bittorrent seeders are making one (or more) additional copies for somebody else's use without surrendering the use of their copy.

[moogs]

F the publishers, the authors and whatever laws (or thoughts of fair play) apply. As long as I got mine...that's all that counts. Argh..its a pirates life for me.

[BruceMcF]

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moogs wrote:
F the publishers, the authors and whatever laws (or thoughts of fair play) apply. As long as I got mine...that's all that counts. Argh..its a pirates life for me.

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A downside of freeloading is that the tastes of freeloader are ignored ~ its only the tastes of those who buy the real editions that decide what gets published.

[doncr]

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BruceMcF wrote:

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doncr wrote:

Nah, I'm covered by the Fair Use exemption.  My scans are of works that I've legally aquired and are for my own personal use (they are NOT redistributed).  No digital copy protection has been circumvented so the DMCA doesn't apply.  This is no different than you being allowed to copy songs from a CD that you own to listen to on your MP3 player.

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However, to avoid confusing people, note that the fair use applies to while you have the book in your possession ~ scanning a book from the library, returning it to the library, and then reading it would be a copyright infringement.

Buying used books, scanning them, selling them and then reading them would also be an infringement. That is just like copying songs from a CD to your MP3 player ~ if someone lends the CD to a friend, and they are listening to the songs at the same time as their friend is, its violating copyright, since the copy is being used as a copy of the work rather than used as an alternative way to use the original copy.

The point of copyright is to let authors/artists earn their daily bread by giving them the right to say who can and cannot make a copy. Scanning for reading as an eBook while in possession of the book is still one copy in use = one copy paid for, when it was originally sold. But once they have given permission for that copy to be made, then with books in particular there is broad freedom with how that copy may then be used.

Its when the copies are used independently that the creators rights are being trampled on. That is the bittorrent case ~ bittorrent seeders are making one (or more) additional copies for somebody else's use without surrendering the use of their copy.

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Thanks for doing a great job clarifying what I was trying to say earlier.  My analogy of saying that book scanning is like ripping the tracks off of a CD to reformat as MP3 to put on a portable player is a bit off.  

What I'm doing is actually more like digitizing the output of an LP that I own, to listen on my own MP3 player.  It's an analog-to-digital conversion process and that is looked at differently in some of the court cases that I've reviewed.

The books that I've scanned from the library were used to calibrate some of the mechanical properties of the scanner and to test the OCR against books printed with different typefaces.  The resulting files were deleted when I returned these "sample texts" back to the library.

[seacitylady]

Nice try @ a back pedal Scanner Dude, but that's not what you said. I do believe you said "then resell them."

"The publishers don't make much from me anymore. I buy used books from sites like Half.com, scan them, read the resulting eBook/PDF, then resell them.  This also lets me read the eBook on whatever device I choose.  I've also scanned books that I've checked out from the library, read the eBook, then returned the book.  

I didn't decide to build my scanner and buy the necessary OCR/eBook software in order to screw publishers out of money (I could have bought a LOT of eBooks for the money and time I spent building this system).  I built it mainly to get electronic copies of the books in my current library here at home that aren't even available in eBook format.  Being able to use this same scanner to scan purchased used books and books from my local library to save a bit of money is just a bonus."

Looks like you've got it all justified even though another poster provided a very clear & diplomatic clarification of what constitutes copyright infrigement. Do what you want, Just suggesting  a monitored website run by BN might NOT be the best place to spew & brag about it. Way TMI

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