That depends on the publisher and the specific license. Since ebooks are licensed, and not transferable, ebook publishers set arbitrary license requirements an

That depends on the publisher and the specific license. Since ebooks are licensed, and not transferable, ebook publishers set arbitrary license requirements and prices depending on whom they're selling to and for what purpose. Some publishers will sell libraries the same book, under multiple license options/restrictions, charging different prices for different options. Ebooks sold to libraries can be much more expensive than the same ebook sold on amazon or kobo. The license criteria can also state that the book can only be lent out X times before the book must be re-purchased or re-licensed. The argument is that physical books degrade and are not infinitely lendable, so these measures are intended to level the playing field. That is an issue, but it exposes the flawed underpinnings of the capitalist copyright system as it interacts with the socialist library system. Specifically, the result is that which books you have access to through libraries depends on where you live, whether you have access to a good university's libraries or whether you're in NYC or Seattle or Los Angeles. Sometimes it's completely random and some obscure library has stocked an ebook, it's just a matter of where someone's requested it and where that request has gotten to the top of the list somehow. This is absurd in the 21st century. So, libraries are dying as a source of books. A lot of people who are into books have migrated to pirate ebook sites, or have ebook clubs or friends who share books among themselves. Libraries stock all the major popular fiction and nonfiction books, at least as ebooks, but they tend to have ridiculous wait lists. They can't buy enough copies initially, and then if the popularity ever dies down that's a sign that it's not worth reading anyway. Only popular books destined to become classics eventually stabilize at a point where they're worth reading and the waitlist isn't too bad... if you wait the months or years for it to get to that point. I don't know why anyone would put up with it except for pure entertainment reading (for instance, unless you're reading it for a book club, it doesn't matter if you wait for a year or two before you read the latest Oprah book club recommendation). And that's a small portion of a library's holdings; the vast majority are obscure books that aren't really that great, whether fiction or non-fiction. They just have them because of random requests. Popular books and unpopular fillers both crowd out obscure but potentially valuable books.