The Price of Ebook Access

Just in time for the Spring books in this February 15 issue, a gang of studies, platforms, and devices have been released that shed light on where we're going with reading and ebooks. There's a lot involved before we get from here, in the print world, to the new “there,” in the eworld, where content will be both portable among devices (ereaders, iPhones, laptops) and formats (text, audio, video, web, etc.) and accessible both online and off. LJ's Josh Hadro elucidates the potential for this latest convergence in “In Front of (E)Readers” (p. 24–27), sharing his post–Consumer Electronics Show vision of how consumer expectations will shape what patrons want from libraries.

The two studies—from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)—released barely a week apart, on media consumption in the lives of eight- to 18-year-olds and on consumer ebook behavior, respectively, lend support to the idea of mashing-up formats and devices.

According to the Kaiser study on recreational media use, kids spend about 7½ hours each day consuming media—(in descending order) TV, music/audio, computer use, video games, print (reading), movies—with multitasking bringing that up to 10¾ hours. Reading print books has remained relatively steady, from 43 minutes a day in 2004 to 38 in 2009. Twenty percent of media consumption occurs on mobile devices.

Meanwhile, a BISG study of purchasers of both print and ebooks (only 868 out of 36,000 people “qualified” as respondents) cited affordability as the primary reason to purchase an ebook over a print book. Some one-fifth say they stopped buying print books, and, surprise, surprise, most wanted portability among devices.

Where does all this leave libraries? One hopes not in the dust. Baker & Taylor's (B&T) Blio platform, which wowed attendees who saw it at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting and at Digital Book World, both last month, promises multidevice, multiformat access and some content portability. It may be a first step for libraries, though no library model has yet been set. B&T's George Coe and OverDrive's Steve Potash (B&T's Omne is powered by OverDrive to distribute digital formats) are working to convince publishers that library lending won't inhibit retail sales but, in fact, will help publishers market books and ereading.

On the consumer side, Blio would enable users to put content on up to five registered devices, such as PCs, laptops, iPhones; Coe isn't sure what the restrictions might be in the library market. Also on the table, he told LJ, is whether libraries could lease a product from publishers and then return it, which would upend current library book-buying practices. On the school side, Blio could support curriculum material, textbooks, and reference, enabling students to highlight and sync work both online and offline.

According to Coe, “Hopefully, when we do roll out this summer, we'll have a number of [commercial] publishers.”

To convince publishers, Coe points out to them that library budgets are finite. B&T analyzed circulation and holds for five top-selling titles in five big libraries (LA County, Maricopa, Phoenix, Miami-Dade, NYPL). Over a six-month period the five titles circed 85,000 times; there were 18,000 holds (most filled), Coe reports, but only one library was able to buy more copies.

“That's over 18,000 potential buyers,” says Coe, some of whom might choose to hit the “buy” option on Omne rather than wait. Libraries would get a transaction fee, as some already do with other online bookstores. “It's a philosophical thing that each community will have to decide,” Coe says.

I'd rather they'd decide against commercialization, but libraries already have gift shops and cafés, which enhance the patron experience. As Coe says of the purchase option, “It helps with library budgets.”

Is all of this taking us further from “free” public libraries to ones with free or fee for those who can pay? As for ereading in the future, can commercial models be ported to the library environment? If it's profitable for library vendors to figure out how, the answer is yes. But we need to ensure that the library model also fits library values.