11 ms·

The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

129 points by lxm 3y ago

gnabgib 3y ago
I feel like the Seattle Public Library part of the original title (The Seattle Public Library Is Reducing Our Maximum Digital Holds. Here’s Why.) is relevant. Could drop "public", "our", and "Here's why" if it's a length issue.
- swsieber 3y ago
  While I get that it's specific to Seattle, it did contain some stuff interesting to someone halfway across the country (me).
stbenjam 3y ago
I find the limits at ny libraries to be exceptionally high. Why does anyone need 25 digital books checked out at a time? That’d probably help with waitlists too. I love Libby, I want to see it survive.
- goldemerald 3y ago
  I like having huge wait-list so that I can put entire series on hold (like wheel of time), maybe I'm manipulating the system a little too much.
- yareal 3y ago
  People read for reasons beyond pleasure. I might be doing a study or comparing authors, I might be reporting on history or researching someone. I might be doing a comparative analysis. Ten checkouts seems low enough that it's likely to get regularly cause problems. 100 checkouts seems too high. So start bisecting. 50? Almost certainly too high. 25 maybe reasonable. They also might have p90 checkout rates and found that 25 is a data driven choice. Librarians are smart people.
  - knappe 3y ago
    I suppose this is true, but feels like the exceptional case. And why not have a reasonable policy that allows someone to appeal their hold limit and have it subjectively approved. I am a fairly prolific reader and I only have 7 holds spread out across 3 libraries. I seriously doubt 25 is the p90 here.
    - brewdad 3y ago
      You’ve never been behind a parent and two kids at the automated book return? I have seen kids with 30+ books each. Usually the parent has a bunch too. I’ve also seen people with dozens of videos too. Usually older folks who may not be able to enjoy reading as much anymore or maybe enjoy the background noise in an empty home.
      - lazyasciiart 3y ago
        Hold limits are different to borrowing limits, and I would guess that most people borrow a lot more than they put on hold.
    - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
      I mean it depends how much you read. If you read 1 book a month, sure. If you read 4 books a week and it's mostly relatively popular genre fiction, you can't just wait to get through the waitlists, you have to pre-plan your reading and sign up for all the books you plan to read for the next 3 weeks ahead of time.
  - gerad 3y ago
    Also, if you have kids then you check out tons of books at a time.
    - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
      To put a concrete number on "tons" - when I was a kid we'd frequently check out 300 books at a time, and the reason the number was 300 was that library cards had a limit of 100 each, and my mom, my dad, and I each had our own library card. Any time I was home sick from school they were all used to check out books for me; and yes, we would go through all 300 of them. Kids' books are pretty short.
- ravetcofx 3y ago
  Libby/Overdrive are a big part of the problem as they're VC owned https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries/ https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/the-coming-enshit...
shkkmo 3y ago
> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version. > This is because publishers use a licensing model for selling e-books to libraries. Each copy of a digital book title requires a purchase of a license. While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. This is why I have zero sympathy for Publishers' efforts to go after the Internet Archive for their scan and lend digitap library. The publishers have been price gouging libraries in ways that shoild be straight up illegal and most Authors have gone along with it.
- dangus 3y ago
  I think the sadder part of this is that this licensing model means that a cartel of publishers will set ebook pricing as high as possible to squeeze every surplus dime out of libraries. High enough to make libraries make extremely difficult budgeting systems but not high enough to strangle their golden geese. In the past, libraries could buy physical books and that was it. But once, own forever. Maybe they’d need to purchase a lot of copies of popular books or replace damaged and lost items. Otherwise, the rest of the money could go toward local programs that help the community. Now, publishers will try to essentially extract surplus funds away from the community for extra profit margins that they don’t need to stay in business. In the past, a library that stopped buying books still had books. Now, a library that fails to pay their tithe will become a shell.
  - abnercoimbre 3y ago
    I really just want to vent. This keeps happening everywhere across the nation, everything is corporatized. I'm so exhausted.
teeray 3y ago
> While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy.
- evmar 3y ago
  Does this mean they library can also "give up" their licenses once a book becomes less popular? (This is still worse than the system for physical books, but at least it lets them dial back the rent over time.)
  - yosito 3y ago
    This would be terrible for libraries' abilities to keep archives of old books. What would be better is for less popular books to have cheaper (free) licenses for libraries.
- koolba 3y ago
  > Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system. I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. If as a society we have a problem that our libraries are too popular, then that’s probably a good thing. > I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy. Something about this reminds me of that company with the thousands of tiny antennas that got sued to oblivion.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The much, much simpler, cheaper, and broad solution is to reduce copyright length to 10 years. Or even 15 years.
    - int_19h 3y ago
dmbche 3y ago
"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly become astronomical." How odd - I know it's the licenscing and I can understand the reasoning behind, but at a distance it seems like ritual almost. When they get the e-book, the data is there, and when you hold it, you get a copy, the "original" is untouched, but the library has to act as if it was unavailable. It feels like how electric cars add artifical engine sounds.
- cortesoft 3y ago
  It is how everything in the digital age works - artificial scarcity. It does seem silly, although I also struggle to think how else we can make the whole thing work.
  - waveBidder 3y ago
    a couple of alternatives are donation models (patreon), or quadratic funding, where a common pool is used to provide the incentive to contribute to the creation of a public good at the actual value you get out of it (see Radical Markets for a description). there's definitely others- the main problem is there are powerful actors who benefit greatly from the status quo, and coordination is hard.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Often times those powerful actors are the authors and creators. There is very little that the traditional publishers can do to stop someone if they want to open source a book, or give libraries infinite copies. I'm a big fan of alternatives, but have come to realize there often valid reasons why they aren't used.
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    Another way to make it work is the way Free Software tends to be monetized: by selling labor (real scarcity) instead of licenses (imaginary scarcity).
gordon_freeman 3y ago
This feels like a lawsuit from US justice department waiting to be filed against the book publishers. Why does an ebook need to cost 3X to a PL compared to what I as a consumer would otherwise purchase from Amazon.
frankfrank13 3y ago
Honestly fair. I am the exact person that uses my Libby holds as my TBR. I had no idea the cost was so high for digital licenses. Especially embarrassing because my library is 2 blocks away
politelemon 3y ago
I can see this easily incentivising only a small subset currently popular books, rather than a wide spectrum. I think the regulators have not yet caught on, regarding the effect the publishers greed will be having in this area.
paxys 3y ago
While the change makes sense, I can't help but feel that the system can be managed more intelligently. For example, if I have 15 books "on hold" on Libby, there's no reason for the library to treat the #15 book with the same priority as #1 and spend more money to buy additional licenses for it.
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  For that to work, holds would need to be ordered, which isn’t the case for Overdrive/Libby. The book I place On Hold today might be more important to me than the one I added two weeks ago.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Sure, so make them ordered.
endgame 3y ago
What an absolute bloody rort by the publishers, reducing their production/transport/storage costs while jacking up the prices for the libraries and turning them into subscribers. Despicable.
waveBidder 3y ago
Honestly at this point, I feel like the ethical thing to do is "steal" digital and buy/borrow physical, the copyright surrounding digital goods has been so thoroughly gamed in the favor of publishers.
- praxulus 3y ago
  Is there reason to believe authors aren't getting a cut of the library license costs? I used to buy my ebooks until I realized libraries had ebook catalogues. A large portion of the books I've borrowed are sales the author lost, they ought to be compensated somehow.
  - waveBidder 3y ago
    oh I'm sure they get /something/, its just not proportional to the their contribution. I'm out of the habit of using the library because I was far away from one, but my normal approach is to just buy the physical copies of the book, regardless of whether I read that or the physical one. There are publishers who go out of their way to be drm free and i do make a point to buy those (Tor comes to mind).
  - sojournerc 3y ago
    Maybe just cynicism, but publishing houses are not known for generosity towards authors. (Much like music studios)
  - lgas 3y ago
    I don't know how anything about getting a cut works, but my understanding is that authors don't have to allow their books to be in the library at all, and libraries specifically need to get permission to lend e-books.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Yes, they do. I believe it starts around 10% based on what I've heard from authors of not-tremendously-high-selling books. My friends who self-publish get much, much more. I believe digital sales/loans are also immune from "returns" or other chargebacks that apply to physical book sales.
thayne 3y ago
Now imagine the impact of those high ebook costs on more rural, or even suburban libraries. These libraries have less money to spend on expensive ebook subscriptions, but at the same time ebooks are much more useful to patrons who live a long ways from the library and may have difficulty going to check out physical books. The same probably applies to libraries that serve more impoverished populations.
kazinator 3y ago
> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. That "even" looks out of place. Since I would expect some digital detritus that can be reproduced in unlimited copies at close to zero cost to cost less, then I would say that it "sometimes even costs more than the actual book". It's not surprising when it's less; "even" adds emphasis on some parameter that has gone beyond expectation.
- banish-m4 3y ago
  The amortized unit cost of digital books is in fact absolutely $0.00.
jldugger 3y ago
I don't live in Seattle and I don't use that many digital holds; for me most are just video games. But recently my county library added a limit for physical holds. "Wait times" seem to be one of those Goodhart's law metrics: by capping holds, you haven't really reduced wait times, just moved most of it out of sight of the reporting API. But there's also kind of a mismatch of incentives at play here. As a patron, I really care more about throughput than latency on every hold I place. It takes me days or weeks to enjoy what I've checked out. But so does everyone else, so there usually isn't something I want on the shelves. In order to keep up throughput, I need something in my holds list ready when I return something. So I have a few dozen holds that go into the system as basically lottery tickets. If it were just me, a policy of "unlimited holds, 2 out at a time" Netflix style would probably work, and I try to implement that by pausing (when I remember). As long I have an item or two out, I'd rather the librarians didn't consider my holds as any kind of "wait time" to optimize.
- brewdad 3y ago
  When a new book comes out the I know I want to read but do not wish to own for various reasons, I will generally put a hold on both physical and digital copies. Sometimes the audiobook too though that’s my least preferred way of consuming the content. Whichever comes available first is the one I will read. My library does have a holds limit but it is something like 75 items so I rarely have to think about it.
  - jldugger 3y ago
    > I will generally put a hold on both physical and digital copies Ah, I suppose their goal is to nudge people towards cheaper physical book borrowing, not just reduce borrowing overall.
kazinator 3y ago
If libraries want to be part of the e-racket, maybe they need to drink the full commercial Kool-Aid, and introduce a two-tier model: a free, regular membership and a paid, premium membership. The premium memberships fees go toward buying content, and are rewarded with perks like longer loan periods, priority holds, and exclusive access to new material.
- brewdad 3y ago
  Libraries are one of the most socially equal institutions we have. They are crucial to lower income families. I’d rather those who don’t want to join the queue simply use their money to buy the material than let them buy their way to the head of the line.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    > I’d rather those who don’t want to join the queue simply use their money to buy the material So that the material is then in their home, only for their use, rather than in the library?
    - dagw 3y ago
      Libraries have limited money. I'd rather they buy 10 different books than 10 copies of the same book, even if that means some people have to wait longer to read that one popular book.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Don’t even joke about it. Libraries should be free to the public, period. Providing free access to library services to the public is one of the most important benefits government should offer their citizens.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    Nothing like a library debate to bring out the virtue signaling rhetoric about low-income families. But, hold your horses; the proposal is actually about having some people who pay, in exchange for a few meager perks. Not to make it an entirely paid system. Here in Canada, we sort of have a working healthcare system. (Not like in civilized countries in the EU, or in Japan, though; another topic). Anyway, I can visit an emergency room and not pay a cent. Yet, people staying in the hospital can pay to upgrade to private rooms. It's just one of those rational compromises in a strained system. Why have a cow at the idea of people donating money to a library in exchange for some privileges, while it continues to be mainly free.
perpil 3y ago
The best part of SPL is you get full digital access to the O'Reilly public library, you don't even need to place holds. Most tech books I've ever needed are a search away. https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/books-and-ebooks/oreilly-complete-public-library https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/books-and-ebooks/oreilly...
- rochak 3y ago
  This was one of the main reasons I got the library card. It’s so worth it.
divbzero 3y ago
Related: “The E-Book Wars” by Planet Money https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishers-ebooks-e-books-macmillan-protest-amazon-bezos https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishe...
adamsb6 3y ago
That graph of expenditures is nuts. The hold-driven purchasing is more than 50% larger than the other categories of new titles and renewals. Does every library do this? I know when I want something popular from King County Public Library I often find that there's a weeks or months long waitlist. But often times those popular titles are rather frivolous, only popular because they're new, and I'd be just as happy if I'd read something older. I wonder how much it would cost to surface an in-stock recommendation in lieu of a too-popular hold whenever a user goes to request such a hold.
barfard 3y ago
[dead]
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
irjustin 3y ago
> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version. > This is because publishers use a licensing model for selling e-books to libraries. Each copy of a digital book title requires a purchase of a license. While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Something went very wrong in negotiations here. That's all I can say. Who allowed this deal to be penned in its exact fashion? The first publisher to set the pattern probably got a huge payday that should have never existed. LTV of the library should be cheaper vs the individual buyer because volume, but >3x!???!! I love public libraries. I grew up in them as a safe place to hang out after school waiting for my working parents to be able to get me. It makes the funding pie shift materially from other things like facilities, staffing, etc. If you're unfamiliar with the Seattle area, the Public Library covers a number less privileged neighborhoods where a safe place is very much needed. This actually makes me angry.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books. Publishers claim that ebooks are totally different and have to be licensed instead of purchased because it's the internet. This is, of course, a naked money grab, but then they threaten to sue anyone who tries to call them on it. Most libraries don't have the resources to litigate it. The Internet Archive is currently making the attempt. Give them money or call your legislators and tell them to pass a law making it clear that the first sale doctrine applies to digital.
  - xur17 3y ago
    > Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books. Part of the challenge is that reselling digital goods in a way that doesn't allow you to resell to multiple people isn't a solved problem. Crypto is probably the closest to a solution, but obviously that isn't widely adopted in a way that would work for ebooks yet.
rahimnathwani 3y ago
I find these two bits interesting: The Library has increased investment in digital collections to meet patron interest. the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. This doesn't sound like an 'investment' to me. It sounds like they're renting books for a year at a time.
reporterexchang 3y ago
[flagged]
- menacingly 3y ago
  The people who care are the people who upvoted it so it'd make the top 20. I think usually when someone spots a conflict like this, it's an inconsistency in their idea of the community rather than in the community.
- delfinom 3y ago
  I would argue many stories on hacker news are boring and just people self-fellating themselves. Who cares and to each their own my dude.
blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
I can get the anger against publishers, who seem to add almost no value to the process. But what’s wrong with the authors charging a licensing fee as described here? They deserve a right to charge what the market will support for their work, like everyone else. Personally I don’t even think this change matters - reducing the number of holds to 10 is very reasonable and I bet most will not even do enough reading to make those holds “worth it”
- int_19h 3y ago
  In the absence of artificial monopoly that is copyright, "what the market will support" is zero, though. And copyright, despite the name, is not a right - it's a privilege granted by society, with the notion that it is a net benefit for said society. Libraries are a part of that equation, and it's not unreasonable to expect some special dispensations there.
meristohm 3y ago
Libraries are dear to me; they were my first taste of independence away from home. I was in heaven amongst all that potential, and as I got older I'd sometimes check out stacks of books and read a fraction of them. After reading this shelftalkblog I decided to reduce the number of Holds (I mostly Tag books for later, but I also tended to Hold books more out of anticipation than probable follow-through), especially on the popular books, and kept Holds on the books I was most likely to read. Libraries are a public good and I've been taking advantage for too long; I'll scale back my acquisitiveness and think before I click.
banish-m4 3y ago
DRM e-books should be banished because they subsidize rent-seeking parasitic capitalism. 0. Stick to real books that don't impose technical limitations or ongoing costs. 1. Promote piracy at every opportunity. Fuck the big 5 publishers and their celebrity book advance deals.
ysofunny 3y ago
digital licensing causes artificial scarcity
nomilk 3y ago
> But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version. Is this an economically rational outcome for a not-obvious reason, or have libraries been very poor negotiators here, in the way they have spent public funds; or have e-book sellers been exploitative (or a bit of both)?
- hnben 3y ago
  I guess it's because of copyright, i.e. it's hard to make an illegal copy of a printed book, and it's easy to make a digital copy of an ebook. So the ebook-markup is partial due to the expected privacy. My other guess is, that it really is more expensive. I think, the publisher's digital infrastructure is really bad. And there is a lot of overhead when publishing a new book with lots of DRM on it. And most books don't get sold that often. So a small number digital purchases must pay for that over-proportional up-front cost.
- dagw 3y ago
  I know that where I live my understanding is that basically the publishers felt 'screwed' by the old deal that they had with print books and that libraries were underpaying. So when e-book negotiations started they used that to try to claw back some of the money they felt they where owed as it where.
xtiansimon 3y ago
I misunderstood the title. Each user has fewer holds, not each digital asset (which would be weird). Nassau County and NYPL have a maximum of three. Lol. Carry on.
hasbot 3y ago
From 25 to 10?! The Oregon libraries have only allowed a max of 6 holds.
Nevermark 3y ago
This forces borrowers to communicate higher quality information indicating their actual highest priority books. Which helps the library improve the economics and provide the best service for the resources they have to work with. Having each reader's hold list interpreted as an ordered prioritized list would add even more information. People with similar lists but differing priorities would be served even better, more cheaply.

129 points by lxm 3y ago

I feel like the Seattle Public Library part of the original title (The Seattle Public Library Is Reducing Our Maximum Digital Holds. Here’s Why.) is relevant. Could drop "public", "our", and "Here's why" if it's a length issue.

swsieber 3y ago
While I get that it's specific to Seattle, it did contain some stuff interesting to someone halfway across the country (me).

stbenjam 3y ago

I find the limits at ny libraries to be exceptionally high. Why does anyone need 25 digital books checked out at a time? That’d probably help with waitlists too. I love Libby, I want to see it survive.

goldemerald 3y ago
I like having huge wait-list so that I can put entire series on hold (like wheel of time), maybe I'm manipulating the system a little too much.
yareal 3y ago
People read for reasons beyond pleasure. I might be doing a study or comparing authors, I might be reporting on history or researching someone. I might be doing a comparative analysis. Ten checkouts seems low enough that it's likely to get regularly cause problems. 100 checkouts seems too high. So start bisecting. 50? Almost certainly too high. 25 maybe reasonable. They also might have p90 checkout rates and found that 25 is a data driven choice. Librarians are smart people.
- knappe 3y ago
  I suppose this is true, but feels like the exceptional case. And why not have a reasonable policy that allows someone to appeal their hold limit and have it subjectively approved. I am a fairly prolific reader and I only have 7 holds spread out across 3 libraries. I seriously doubt 25 is the p90 here.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    You’ve never been behind a parent and two kids at the automated book return? I have seen kids with 30+ books each. Usually the parent has a bunch too. I’ve also seen people with dozens of videos too. Usually older folks who may not be able to enjoy reading as much anymore or maybe enjoy the background noise in an empty home.
    - lazyasciiart 3y ago
      Hold limits are different to borrowing limits, and I would guess that most people borrow a lot more than they put on hold.
  - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
    I mean it depends how much you read. If you read 1 book a month, sure. If you read 4 books a week and it's mostly relatively popular genre fiction, you can't just wait to get through the waitlists, you have to pre-plan your reading and sign up for all the books you plan to read for the next 3 weeks ahead of time.
- gerad 3y ago
  Also, if you have kids then you check out tons of books at a time.
  - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
    To put a concrete number on "tons" - when I was a kid we'd frequently check out 300 books at a time, and the reason the number was 300 was that library cards had a limit of 100 each, and my mom, my dad, and I each had our own library card. Any time I was home sick from school they were all used to check out books for me; and yes, we would go through all 300 of them. Kids' books are pretty short.
ravetcofx 3y ago
Libby/Overdrive are a big part of the problem as they're VC owned https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries/ https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/the-coming-enshit...

shkkmo 3y ago

dangus 3y ago
I think the sadder part of this is that this licensing model means that a cartel of publishers will set ebook pricing as high as possible to squeeze every surplus dime out of libraries. High enough to make libraries make extremely difficult budgeting systems but not high enough to strangle their golden geese. In the past, libraries could buy physical books and that was it. But once, own forever. Maybe they’d need to purchase a lot of copies of popular books or replace damaged and lost items. Otherwise, the rest of the money could go toward local programs that help the community. Now, publishers will try to essentially extract surplus funds away from the community for extra profit margins that they don’t need to stay in business. In the past, a library that stopped buying books still had books. Now, a library that fails to pay their tithe will become a shell.
- abnercoimbre 3y ago
  I really just want to vent. This keeps happening everywhere across the nation, everything is corporatized. I'm so exhausted.

teeray 3y ago

> While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy.

evmar 3y ago
Does this mean they library can also "give up" their licenses once a book becomes less popular? (This is still worse than the system for physical books, but at least it lets them dial back the rent over time.)
- yosito 3y ago
  This would be terrible for libraries' abilities to keep archives of old books. What would be better is for less popular books to have cheaper (free) licenses for libraries.
koolba 3y ago
> Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system. I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. If as a society we have a problem that our libraries are too popular, then that’s probably a good thing. > I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy they own and then own the resulting digital copy. Something about this reminds me of that company with the thousands of tiny antennas that got sued to oblivion.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The much, much simpler, cheaper, and broad solution is to reduce copyright length to 10 years. Or even 15 years.
  - int_19h 3y ago

dmbche 3y ago

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly become astronomical." How odd - I know it's the licenscing and I can understand the reasoning behind, but at a distance it seems like ritual almost. When they get the e-book, the data is there, and when you hold it, you get a copy, the "original" is untouched, but the library has to act as if it was unavailable. It feels like how electric cars add artifical engine sounds.

cortesoft 3y ago
It is how everything in the digital age works - artificial scarcity. It does seem silly, although I also struggle to think how else we can make the whole thing work.
- waveBidder 3y ago
  a couple of alternatives are donation models (patreon), or quadratic funding, where a common pool is used to provide the incentive to contribute to the creation of a public good at the actual value you get out of it (see Radical Markets for a description). there's definitely others- the main problem is there are powerful actors who benefit greatly from the status quo, and coordination is hard.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Often times those powerful actors are the authors and creators. There is very little that the traditional publishers can do to stop someone if they want to open source a book, or give libraries infinite copies. I'm a big fan of alternatives, but have come to realize there often valid reasons why they aren't used.
- Zambyte 3y ago
  Another way to make it work is the way Free Software tends to be monetized: by selling labor (real scarcity) instead of licenses (imaginary scarcity).

gordon_freeman 3y ago

This feels like a lawsuit from US justice department waiting to be filed against the book publishers. Why does an ebook need to cost 3X to a PL compared to what I as a consumer would otherwise purchase from Amazon.

frankfrank13 3y ago

Honestly fair. I am the exact person that uses my Libby holds as my TBR. I had no idea the cost was so high for digital licenses. Especially embarrassing because my library is 2 blocks away

politelemon 3y ago

I can see this easily incentivising only a small subset currently popular books, rather than a wide spectrum. I think the regulators have not yet caught on, regarding the effect the publishers greed will be having in this area.

paxys 3y ago

While the change makes sense, I can't help but feel that the system can be managed more intelligently. For example, if I have 15 books "on hold" on Libby, there's no reason for the library to treat the #15 book with the same priority as #1 and spend more money to buy additional licenses for it.

LeafItAlone 3y ago
For that to work, holds would need to be ordered, which isn’t the case for Overdrive/Libby. The book I place On Hold today might be more important to me than the one I added two weeks ago.
- paxys 3y ago
  Sure, so make them ordered.

endgame 3y ago

What an absolute bloody rort by the publishers, reducing their production/transport/storage costs while jacking up the prices for the libraries and turning them into subscribers. Despicable.

waveBidder 3y ago

Honestly at this point, I feel like the ethical thing to do is "steal" digital and buy/borrow physical, the copyright surrounding digital goods has been so thoroughly gamed in the favor of publishers.

praxulus 3y ago
Is there reason to believe authors aren't getting a cut of the library license costs? I used to buy my ebooks until I realized libraries had ebook catalogues. A large portion of the books I've borrowed are sales the author lost, they ought to be compensated somehow.
- waveBidder 3y ago
  oh I'm sure they get /something/, its just not proportional to the their contribution. I'm out of the habit of using the library because I was far away from one, but my normal approach is to just buy the physical copies of the book, regardless of whether I read that or the physical one. There are publishers who go out of their way to be drm free and i do make a point to buy those (Tor comes to mind).
- sojournerc 3y ago
  Maybe just cynicism, but publishing houses are not known for generosity towards authors. (Much like music studios)
- lgas 3y ago
  I don't know how anything about getting a cut works, but my understanding is that authors don't have to allow their books to be in the library at all, and libraries specifically need to get permission to lend e-books.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Yes, they do. I believe it starts around 10% based on what I've heard from authors of not-tremendously-high-selling books. My friends who self-publish get much, much more. I believe digital sales/loans are also immune from "returns" or other chargebacks that apply to physical book sales.

thayne 3y ago

Now imagine the impact of those high ebook costs on more rural, or even suburban libraries. These libraries have less money to spend on expensive ebook subscriptions, but at the same time ebooks are much more useful to patrons who live a long ways from the library and may have difficulty going to check out physical books. The same probably applies to libraries that serve more impoverished populations.

kazinator 3y ago

> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. That "even" looks out of place. Since I would expect some digital detritus that can be reproduced in unlimited copies at close to zero cost to cost less, then I would say that it "sometimes even costs more than the actual book". It's not surprising when it's less; "even" adds emphasis on some parameter that has gone beyond expectation.

banish-m4 3y ago
The amortized unit cost of digital books is in fact absolutely $0.00.

jldugger 3y ago

I don't live in Seattle and I don't use that many digital holds; for me most are just video games. But recently my county library added a limit for physical holds. "Wait times" seem to be one of those Goodhart's law metrics: by capping holds, you haven't really reduced wait times, just moved most of it out of sight of the reporting API. But there's also kind of a mismatch of incentives at play here. As a patron, I really care more about throughput than latency on every hold I place. It takes me days or weeks to enjoy what I've checked out. But so does everyone else, so there usually isn't something I want on the shelves. In order to keep up throughput, I need something in my holds list ready when I return something. So I have a few dozen holds that go into the system as basically lottery tickets. If it were just me, a policy of "unlimited holds, 2 out at a time" Netflix style would probably work, and I try to implement that by pausing (when I remember). As long I have an item or two out, I'd rather the librarians didn't consider my holds as any kind of "wait time" to optimize.

brewdad 3y ago
When a new book comes out the I know I want to read but do not wish to own for various reasons, I will generally put a hold on both physical and digital copies. Sometimes the audiobook too though that’s my least preferred way of consuming the content. Whichever comes available first is the one I will read. My library does have a holds limit but it is something like 75 items so I rarely have to think about it.
- jldugger 3y ago
  > I will generally put a hold on both physical and digital copies Ah, I suppose their goal is to nudge people towards cheaper physical book borrowing, not just reduce borrowing overall.

kazinator 3y ago

If libraries want to be part of the e-racket, maybe they need to drink the full commercial Kool-Aid, and introduce a two-tier model: a free, regular membership and a paid, premium membership. The premium memberships fees go toward buying content, and are rewarded with perks like longer loan periods, priority holds, and exclusive access to new material.

brewdad 3y ago
Libraries are one of the most socially equal institutions we have. They are crucial to lower income families. I’d rather those who don’t want to join the queue simply use their money to buy the material than let them buy their way to the head of the line.
- kazinator 3y ago
  > I’d rather those who don’t want to join the queue simply use their money to buy the material So that the material is then in their home, only for their use, rather than in the library?
  - dagw 3y ago
    Libraries have limited money. I'd rather they buy 10 different books than 10 copies of the same book, even if that means some people have to wait longer to read that one popular book.
mock-possum 3y ago
Don’t even joke about it. Libraries should be free to the public, period. Providing free access to library services to the public is one of the most important benefits government should offer their citizens.
- kazinator 3y ago
  Nothing like a library debate to bring out the virtue signaling rhetoric about low-income families. But, hold your horses; the proposal is actually about having some people who pay, in exchange for a few meager perks. Not to make it an entirely paid system. Here in Canada, we sort of have a working healthcare system. (Not like in civilized countries in the EU, or in Japan, though; another topic). Anyway, I can visit an emergency room and not pay a cent. Yet, people staying in the hospital can pay to upgrade to private rooms. It's just one of those rational compromises in a strained system. Why have a cow at the idea of people donating money to a library in exchange for some privileges, while it continues to be mainly free.

perpil 3y ago

The best part of SPL is you get full digital access to the O'Reilly public library, you don't even need to place holds. Most tech books I've ever needed are a search away. https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/books-and-ebooks/oreilly-complete-public-library https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/books-and-ebooks/oreilly...

rochak 3y ago
This was one of the main reasons I got the library card. It’s so worth it.

divbzero 3y ago

Related: “The E-Book Wars” by Planet Money https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishers-ebooks-e-books-macmillan-protest-amazon-bezos https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishe...

adamsb6 3y ago

That graph of expenditures is nuts. The hold-driven purchasing is more than 50% larger than the other categories of new titles and renewals. Does every library do this? I know when I want something popular from King County Public Library I often find that there's a weeks or months long waitlist. But often times those popular titles are rather frivolous, only popular because they're new, and I'd be just as happy if I'd read something older. I wonder how much it would cost to surface an in-stock recommendation in lieu of a too-popular hold whenever a user goes to request such a hold.

barfard 3y ago

[dead]

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

irjustin 3y ago

> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version. > This is because publishers use a licensing model for selling e-books to libraries. Each copy of a digital book title requires a purchase of a license. While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. Something went very wrong in negotiations here. That's all I can say. Who allowed this deal to be penned in its exact fashion? The first publisher to set the pattern probably got a huge payday that should have never existed. LTV of the library should be cheaper vs the individual buyer because volume, but >3x!???!! I love public libraries. I grew up in them as a safe place to hang out after school waiting for my working parents to be able to get me. It makes the funding pie shift materially from other things like facilities, staffing, etc. If you're unfamiliar with the Seattle area, the Public Library covers a number less privileged neighborhoods where a safe place is very much needed. This actually makes me angry.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books. Publishers claim that ebooks are totally different and have to be licensed instead of purchased because it's the internet. This is, of course, a naked money grab, but then they threaten to sue anyone who tries to call them on it. Most libraries don't have the resources to litigate it. The Internet Archive is currently making the attempt. Give them money or call your legislators and tell them to pass a law making it clear that the first sale doctrine applies to digital.
- xur17 3y ago
  > Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books. Part of the challenge is that reselling digital goods in a way that doesn't allow you to resell to multiple people isn't a solved problem. Crypto is probably the closest to a solution, but obviously that isn't widely adopted in a way that would work for ebooks yet.

rahimnathwani 3y ago

I find these two bits interesting: The Library has increased investment in digital collections to meet patron interest. the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year. This doesn't sound like an 'investment' to me. It sounds like they're renting books for a year at a time.

reporterexchang 3y ago

[flagged]

menacingly 3y ago
The people who care are the people who upvoted it so it'd make the top 20. I think usually when someone spots a conflict like this, it's an inconsistency in their idea of the community rather than in the community.
delfinom 3y ago
I would argue many stories on hacker news are boring and just people self-fellating themselves. Who cares and to each their own my dude.

blackeyeblitzar 3y ago

I can get the anger against publishers, who seem to add almost no value to the process. But what’s wrong with the authors charging a licensing fee as described here? They deserve a right to charge what the market will support for their work, like everyone else. Personally I don’t even think this change matters - reducing the number of holds to 10 is very reasonable and I bet most will not even do enough reading to make those holds “worth it”

int_19h 3y ago
In the absence of artificial monopoly that is copyright, "what the market will support" is zero, though. And copyright, despite the name, is not a right - it's a privilege granted by society, with the notion that it is a net benefit for said society. Libraries are a part of that equation, and it's not unreasonable to expect some special dispensations there.

meristohm 3y ago

Libraries are dear to me; they were my first taste of independence away from home. I was in heaven amongst all that potential, and as I got older I'd sometimes check out stacks of books and read a fraction of them. After reading this shelftalkblog I decided to reduce the number of Holds (I mostly Tag books for later, but I also tended to Hold books more out of anticipation than probable follow-through), especially on the popular books, and kept Holds on the books I was most likely to read. Libraries are a public good and I've been taking advantage for too long; I'll scale back my acquisitiveness and think before I click.

banish-m4 3y ago

DRM e-books should be banished because they subsidize rent-seeking parasitic capitalism. 0. Stick to real books that don't impose technical limitations or ongoing costs. 1. Promote piracy at every opportunity. Fuck the big 5 publishers and their celebrity book advance deals.

ysofunny 3y ago

digital licensing causes artificial scarcity

nomilk 3y ago

> But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version. Is this an economically rational outcome for a not-obvious reason, or have libraries been very poor negotiators here, in the way they have spent public funds; or have e-book sellers been exploitative (or a bit of both)?

hnben 3y ago
I guess it's because of copyright, i.e. it's hard to make an illegal copy of a printed book, and it's easy to make a digital copy of an ebook. So the ebook-markup is partial due to the expected privacy. My other guess is, that it really is more expensive. I think, the publisher's digital infrastructure is really bad. And there is a lot of overhead when publishing a new book with lots of DRM on it. And most books don't get sold that often. So a small number digital purchases must pay for that over-proportional up-front cost.
dagw 3y ago
I know that where I live my understanding is that basically the publishers felt 'screwed' by the old deal that they had with print books and that libraries were underpaying. So when e-book negotiations started they used that to try to claw back some of the money they felt they where owed as it where.

xtiansimon 3y ago

I misunderstood the title. Each user has fewer holds, not each digital asset (which would be weird). Nassau County and NYPL have a maximum of three. Lol. Carry on.

hasbot 3y ago

From 25 to 10?! The Oregon libraries have only allowed a max of 6 holds.

Nevermark 3y ago

This forces borrowers to communicate higher quality information indicating their actual highest priority books. Which helps the library improve the economics and provide the best service for the resources they have to work with. Having each reader's hold list interpreted as an ordered prioritized list would add even more information. People with similar lists but differing priorities would be served even better, more cheaply.