It kills me that these days going to a library is treated as an interesting alternative to giving Amazon all your money. When I was younger, the library was the place you started looking for something to read.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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The purpose of libraries has simply expanded. A lot of people do still use it for books, but this being an online forum there's likely a selection bias at play. People learn to go to the library when that's the main place they have access to stuff, often because purchasing or finding it digitally is out of the price-range. As a consequence, those big beautiful libraries in the nice part of town are often pretty empty but the cramped one near us poor folk is full of families and their kids every weekend.
But libraries offer so much more than books. They have digital services, often with access to computers (again, mostly used by those who can't afford a personal computer), and research assistance. Librarians know how to research and find sources and are an invaluable help when trying to find research on a topic. My local has community events where someone comes in and gives presentations or activities for kids often. Libraries are a community project that brings people together. Unfortunately, public libraries, being not for profit, don't have extensive funds so they don't have the reach they used to. Public sentiment has also turned away from libraries for a variety of reasons and in different ways. The capitalist-centric world-view lends to people's appreciation for owning things and improving your own station while shying away from improving the group condition. Libraries whole purpose is antithetical to that world-view, so they're ignored at best, actively fought against at worst.
This is, of course, an American centric rant, since that's where I am and can't speak to the conditions elsewhere.
When I was very young, my parents took me to the library to pick books to read because (a) I was reading a lot and (b) we didn't have much money. As I got older, my dad's business started doing very well, and I wasn't chewing though books as fast, so most books became gifts and the library was just a place to do research for school reports (no Internet then).
And that's just kind of what stuck with me - as an adult I've never really thought about it for pleasure reading, but it's nice to rediscover. My only concern is that I'm not really supporting the authors well, and I probably can afford to.
It just feels weird to me that digital version of a book is treated as having limited amount...
It's just bytes in some computer.
Why would user A need to wait until user B is finished with the book, before being able to read it?
Because if it was actually legitimately unlimited, nobody would pay for books. There's Hoopla that my library also supports that has instant borrows of anything, but it's capped at 6 per month.
There are authors who make decent money, but there are a lot more who don't.
I understand the rationale, but that only means the author's contracts should be adjusted so that their revenue is function of the reads, not the sales. (Or some other metric)
Libraries are (generally) not for profit. There's not really the revenue stream to strike deals like that. Publishers are likely only getting a pittance from licensing to libraries, hell for most publishers they likely only do it as a PR move, and if they start charging per read... well, libraries may as well not bother with ebook licensing at that point and just put a book scanner in the library.
My understanding is that they actually do kind of get charged per read for digital copies. The contracts are weird, but there are terms where they have to treat them as "wearing out" like regular books do.
But the bottom line point remains the same. Libraries get favorable pricing compared to normal people and can't sustain the publishing industry.
And how do they get paid if everyone is reading from the library, who's allowed unlimited loans? Unless you raise their cost per title, which they can't afford.
I read 25 books some months, but some are 50, and some are more. Do you really want your library to pay for every book I read if they get charged per read?
If they don't, even the handful of authors who are making money now are in trouble. If that best seller is free without restriction from the library, what are the chances that even they sell enough to survive?
I think the point is if you like the book you hopefully buy a copy for yourself? I tend to read like 40 books a year and if I didn’t use the library extensively the foundations on my house would crumbled under the weight. As it is I still end up acquiring probably 5 or 10 new books a year despite everything.
(But at least they’re ones I know are good.)
If you knew you could borrow it any time for free, and you do your reading digitally, would you really buy it? Would most people?
I personally have bought a handful of physical books from my favorites with no intention of opening them just to have them on my bookshelf, but there are also multiple series I listen to 2-3 times a year that I haven't purchased because they're either available through my library or because they're available through scribd (where I read more than enough new books per month to justify the subscription). Unrestricted free availability is bound to cut pretty heavily into people paying for content, especially if we're talking people who are doing their reading digitally with ebooks and audiobooks anyways.
Well, yes. I probably still would. But that's me. And also, you're talking about "instant access" when actually if you want access to a specific and popular book there's usually a wait of a couple weeks to a couple months. So some people who really want that book are going to want to read it right now and might buy it for the instant access whenever they want?
At any rate, there are people who use the library and people who don't. I read like 2-3 digital books a year usually—only when the library failed to get a physical copy, basically. But I only buy a few of those books for home use (physically again) because there are only a few that I really like enough to own. But that has been the case with library users practically since libraries were invented, so it's not that new a situation.
Scribd I can't speak to as I don't use that at all, but it kind of sounds like Kindle Unlimited, so… if they're paying the authors, it needs to be adjusted enough to where the authors are getting a decent cut per use. This is the same as with Spotify and music. It's something that has to be worked out obviously, but there's nothing to say it couldn't happen as far as I know.
It's just the cost model. The authors usually write as their primary source of income, so they're selling each book. If they just sold one and everyone copied it, it would either have to be tremendously expensive or it wouldn't pay their bills. I brought my kids up not to pirate music and movies for the same reason - it doesn't support the artists. I'm actually a bit uncomfortable using the library for the same reason since I can afford the books if I just reprioritize a bit.
The same happens with movies in theater. When we switched to digital, a decades ago, they was like "everyone can have the movies at the same time, not like with limited physical copies".
It was a lie. Sure, everyone can have a copy on the release day, but not everyone will have the time-key for delock it from X days since Y date. So some theaters will have it first weeks, others only the third ones.
Again, this is not because the tech is not enabling this, but an attempt to extort more money (for earlier delock) from the theaters is there.
Hey, just so you know, you can sign up for multiple library cards and Libby will give you the option to choose the shortest hold times.
I know San Bernardino has a free digital card for for CA residents, and I think the Sacramento library has a similar situation but you need to get a card in person.
Oh, interesting. Maybe a silly question, but is it ethical? I mean do they intentionally include people who don't live in the area, or is it just a loophole?
You need to get a library card, and some libraries have an aegis that covers larger groups of people (for eg all Californians), while others only cover those that live in a given city/town.
So no, it's not unethical, unless you're pretending to live in CA (or wherever) when you don't, in which case why bother with getting a card and app and just torrent.
Okay, thanks, that makes sense. I really try to live ethically and not game the system.
Just find libraries in your city first, then check the counties and neighboring cities, as they usually have reciprocal agreements, or may be part of a regional network for ebooks. Then check the state (in my experience, state libraries are open to anyone that lives in the state, but you generally have to show up at the branch with an ID and proof of residency).
Okay, thanks.
I do this too!
Just use libgen and email it to your Kindle. Free books forever.
What's libgen?
Pirated ebooks, most people use it to avoid buying insanely expensive college textbooks.
College textbooks are a racket, for sure, especially when the teacher requires an expensive book that he or she wrote, which I had happen more than once. In one case, we didn't use that book a single time in class.
Good to hear!
Overdrive is greedy. They charge libraries obscene amounts of money for access to their catalog, and most libraries can only afford to pay for a fraction of what's available.
And it's not just the new, high-demand titles that are a problem. I have one overdrive book that's been on hold for over a year.
It's "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway.
It's overdrive the same as Libby? I think Libby is what my reservations are through.
Yup. Overdrive is the service, Libby is the app.
Someone else said you can have multiple libraries, so you might try that. I see for mine that there's a two week wait, with about one person per the 15 copies they have waiting.
You can read that for free any time, as it is in the public domain. Gutenberg has it in a bunch of formats. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67138