Helen Leech

Surrey Library Service, and

Shelf Free (www.shelffree.org.uk)

@helenleech

Half of all adults now own a smartphone (Ofcom 2013)One in four households now has a tablet (Ofcom 2013)We think seven out of ten Surrey residents has a device on which they can e-readPwC think the ebook market is going to overtake the print market by 2017Charlie Redmayne of HarperCollins thinks the book market’s going to settle at 50% digital (Telegraph)Around a fifth of library authorities in the UK are still NOT offering e-booksSurrey spends 2.6% of its bookfund on e-books

Overdrive, Askews and Public Library Online (with WF Howes, Bolinda and Peters just entering the market)

Popular fiction and non-fiction – not e-audio

One user, one loan

Epub and pdf

Digital Rights Management software is normally Adobe Digital Editions…

… which means no downloading on library computers

No integration with the catalogue. Third parties only

Overdrive arrives in the UK around 2009

Surrey libraries’ ebook collection launches in 2010 with a hugely successful campaign targetting commuters

“Anybody, anywhere”

Overdrive’s controversial relationship with Amazon

Penguin, Random House withdraw from Overdrive

Beginning of the Dark Age of e-lending

Rise of the Society of Chief Librarians’ digital / ebook group

Discussions with the Publishers’ Association

The Reading Agency’s digital marketing initiative

Shelf Free (www.shelffree.org.uk)

All Party Parliamentary Group October 2012

Random House release backstock November 2013

Sieghart Review April 2013

Sieghart pilots October 2013

“A key recommendation was that a series of pilots be constructed to test remote elending, based on one user, one copy and that copy would deteriorate after an agreed number of loans. The pilots are intended to provide publishers, authors, agents and libraries with an evidence base to assess what happens to lending and purchasing behaviour in those areas.”

(Society of Chief Librarians and the Publishers Association Invitation To Tender, September 2013)

1. Libraries don’t have the right to lend e-books. See http://shelffree.org.uk/2014/03/12/the-right-to-e-read/

2. Authors get paid (via Public Lending Right) when their physical book is borrowed from a public library, but not if it’s an e-book. The legislation hasn’t kept up.

3. You can’t borrow library books on a Kindle.

4. Library e-books and e-audiobooks are almost impossible for people with serious sight impairments to use. The combination of registration issues and the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software makes them almost unusable.

5. You can’t borrow an e-book in a library (unless you bring your own device, and the library offers wi-fi. DRM means you can’t use library computers).

6. Libraries can’t host and loan e-books themselves. They don’t have the technology. Third-party companies do it for them.

7. Libraries can’t buy and own e-books, which are licensed. If a library service changes supplier, it loses the stock it has paid for.

8. Roughly 85% of popular e-books are not available to public libraries. Publishers are anxious about how e-loans will affect their sales, and there’s no legal requirement for them to sell to libraries.

9. Many library services help people to get started with e-books. They run public workshops, offer training and advice, and take e-readers and tablets to housebound users.

10. Public libraries in the UK spend around £78m per year on books, and around £2m on e-books. - See more at: http://www.futurebook.net/content/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-ebooks-and-uk-public-libraries-0#sthash.YsP90Zsh.dpuf

The rise of self-publishing

Patron Driven Acquisition

The ethics of using our customer data

How much control we want over the relationship with publishers

Public Lending Right

The importance of language – leading to price setting

Library services are not necessarily statutory –or free

Copyright legislation – EU Copyright Directive 2001 and the “exhaustion” doctrine

VAT situation

Germany publishes about 82 000 books each year (US=292k, UK=149k)One in four Germans own a tabletBook market is in turmoil, ebooks rising slightlyAmazon controls about 45% of ebook sales (launched in Oct 2012)Divibib is main library supplierM-licence, L-licence, XL-licenceSome problems: “windowing”, Holtzbrinck group don’t sell to public libraries, one publisher (Beck) asking triple the retail price620 out of 2100 libraries lend ebooks (2012 figures)

France publishes about 42 000 books each year (US=292k, UK=149k)One in ten people own a tablet

Book market is in turmoil

Strong support for the book as cultural artifact and resistance to ebooks (but starting to shift). The state sets prices and VAT.

Biblioaccess is the largest supplier to libraries

Low takeup, concerns about high prices, limits on concurrent access, some publishers preventing remote access, lack of interoperability

Couperin.org and French Ministry of Culture are focussing on the issues

Publishes around 4ooo books per year

The creation of Elib in 2000 opened up e-lending

Patrons chose the stock. By 2013 e-loans were rocketing, but the system was flawed. Librarians were unable to control costs, and publishers were worried about eroded sales

The practice of “windowing” by publishers has led to the launch of a protest campaign by the Swedish Library Association

Now libraries can choose between an “access” model and a “licence” model = better management of costs.

Sweden: Atingo – a relationship between the Publit publishing service and Axiell . = Self published materials and pay-per-loan

France: Library / bookshop partnerships via Pret Numerique en Bibliotheque, at Montpellier, Grenoble and Aulnay‐sous‐Bois

Sweden (again): Stockholm Central Library – digitising Ordfront’sbackstock in return for lending rights

Czech Republic: Ebooks in all Libraries – libraries as part of digitisation process, providing statistics about use

Netherlands: Qinqo – retail cards for ebooks

NAPLE: National Authorities on Public Libraries in Europe. Website at http://naple.mcu.es/. Blog at http://napleblog.wordpress.com/.

The Global Ebook Report by Rudiger Wischenbart, available at http://www.wischenbart.com/

EBLIDA’s campaign – The Right to E-Read: http://www.eblida.org/e-read/home-campaign/. (EBLIDA is the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations.)

Helen LeechHelen.leech@surreycc.

gov.ukShelffree.org.uk