Agree with what you said. Some other points, it's not all publishers. The big 4/5 are this way, but there are a ton of publishers who license much more liberall

Agree with what you said. Some other points, it's not all publishers. The big 4/5 are this way, but there are a ton of publishers who license much more liberally to libraries. Some will sell their entire catalog for a fixed yearly subscription w/o waits and some will even sell parts of the catalog perpetually. It's a win-win since publishers get a nice chunk of money and libraries get much better licensing terms. Another challenge you don't mention is patrons. They want the latest James Patterson novel, and nothing else. The library, smaller publishers, and less known authors don't have the marketing budgets to get patrons interested. There is so much content now that new, independent authors don't often even want money, they just want someone, anyone to read their book. Maybe unpopular opinion, but I think libraries should give up on best sellers or at a minimum embargo them for 12+ months. They'll end up with better terms from the big 4/5, and can be a discovery place for new authors in addition to/rather than Amazon KDP where many end up now. Oh, and I haven't even touched the existential threat from Amazon. They just released their entire music catalog for prime subscribers. There will come a point when they do the same for books.