Publishers and Libraries moving forward
N.B.: I am a member of the ALA OITP eBook Task Force, which met in a business meeting at the American Library Association meetings in June 2011. Senior HarperCollins staff suggested they pay us a visit to discuss lending models for digital books. That overture was quickly accepted by the task force.
HarperCollins staff attending were Virginia Stanley, Director of Marketing, Josh Marwell, President of Sales and Adam Silverman, Senior Business Manager.
——— -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- ——— -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- ———
The meeting between the ALA OITP eBook Task Force and HarperCollins was a welcome and important opportunity to begin discussions between major trade publishers and libraries. We noted that while libraries have ridden out multiple format changes in other media, the transition to ebooks is meaningfully different, with broader ramifications, than those in the past.
The meeting was initiated by a comparison of estimated per circulation costs for different types of print books versus digital in different kinds of libraries, such as public or school. This discussion highlighted the pitfalls in assuming that every kind of published work could be suitably described in a common revenue model.
At that point, various ways of re-conceptualizing how the published catalog might be acquired and utilized were arrayed: this became the heart of our conversation, and while it discussed current service models and providers in the library market, it definitely did not assume a static position. Additionally, awareness of the growing number of self- and independently published works is alerting libraries to the need for new collection strategies and partnerships.
We discussed ways it might be possible to differentiate acquisition and circulation models for blockbluster or heavy selling titles from normal frontlist or midlist material; or whether it might be possible to acquire a complete set, or obtain a subscription to, all backlist titles from any given publisher by a library consortia. (Interestingly, there was no discussion of Google’s proposed GBS settlement-based Institutional Subscription; the low value proposition given both the academic source material and the holdings gaps resulting from publisher Partners Program opt-outs may have rendered it inconsequential to both the publisher and library parties at the table.)
The task force raised the possibility of libraries providing their own digital book services without relying on intermediaries by forming library-operated digital book consortia, loosely modeled on the recommendation of the COSLA report [pdf]; technically, a single national library-controlled service with a new governance model could be spawned. However, because most public library funding is community or State based, it may be more straightforward to create State-level consortia, or linked State consortia. Since it is inherently possible to split the service layer from the revenue vector, these new extra-local consortial models need not imply a diminution of income for publishers; it’s also conceivable they might streamline accounting for both parties in a cost-saving manner.
We also discussed the conundrum of digital ownership versus licensing. The challenge is how to ensure adequate compensation to rightsholders while endorsing the continuity of the key library function of retaining titles for preservation, and whether it was feasible to generate acquisition models that permitted libraries to own copies of digital books in a traditional sense while specifying business models for publishers, perhaps on a tbd per-circulation basis (or a capitated basis for a service area) with allowances for purchase price. Since ownership and revenue can be differentiated, this is another example of how traditional library services need not threaten essential publisher goals. It is also an example of how we can embrace copyright law without enervating it through licensing.
We closed with early-stage discussion of the ways that publishers and libraries, communicating more deeply, might be able to share with each other various types of high-level usage data that would augment both library and publisher positions, such as interest in certain types of titles, or geographic distributions of readership, and so forth. These new models of data sharing, while remaining cognizant of and protecting the critical value for libraries of reader privacy, are made possible by the digital transition and might indeed be best delivered by entirely new models of both acquisition and provision of digital books.
All sides of the table were very open to further discussion of these opportunities, and indeed we recognized that the process of clarifying the goals for each party – answering the question: “what do publishers (or libraries) want out of a digital world?” – is not an easy one, but it is one that we must answer together.
