"Cost of ebooks, audiobooks ‘not a sustainable model’ for Canadian libraries, council says" by Amy Smart, The Canadian Press (December 17, 2018) Statement on eBook Pricing Models from the Canadian Urban Libraries Council (March 2011) Visit #eContentForLibraries to learn more about digital books and libraries, see more pricing comparisons, and find contact information for publishers.Ĭheck out the following news articles and advocacy statements for more information about digital books and libraries. If you want to help make digital books more affordable for libraries, you can contact the main five publishers of books to let them know that their prices and pricing models are inadequate. What can I do to help make digital books more affordable for libraries? Not every digital audiobook in the collection is a Pay-Per-Use book and the library does the best we can to continuously grow our digital audiobook collection through purchases. While raising our total budget would help resolve some backlog of holds on digital audiobooks that are Pay-Per-Use, it is not a sustainable budgeting option for us at this time. The highest usage fee per book that we currently allow is $5.00 per book. Through this service, the library delivers roughly 110 - 130 digital audiobooks loans per month with the current budget depending on the "usage fee" per audiobook. This budget fills digital audiobook holds that are Pay-Per-Use titles until the budget is empty. The library sets aside a monthly budgeted amount that activates on the 1st of every month. Why does it take so long for me to get my audiobooks on cloudLibrary?īecause the cost of purchasing digital audiobooks is so high for libraries, Kawartha Lakes Public Library has turned on a system called Pay-Per-Use books. Canadian Libraries cannot provide access to Kindle-formatted books through Amazon. *Digital prices for consumers are pulled from the Kobo store. All of these costs are decided by the publishers. The library has no negotiating power when it comes to the costs we pay for digital books. When you buy a digital book, you have the license to own that copy of the book forever. The library never owns a permanent copy of a digital book, unlike when the library buys a physical book, and has to repurchase the license when it either A) reaches the 1-year expiry date or B) has been borrowed 26 times. When the library buys a digital book, what we actually purchase is often a 1-year (or 26 checkout) license to share the digital book. The library would love to buy every digital book available to us, but the problem comes down to cost. Why doesn't the library just buy more digital books and audiobooks? Let's try to answer some of those questions. Have you ever wondered why the library just doesn't buy more digital books? Or why does it take so long to get your audiobooks you've had on hold since forever in cloudLibrary?
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