Tuesday, July 23, 2013

MoCo Council E-Book Resolution Is About Libraries -- Not Authors

The Montgomery County Council July 23 approved a resolution putting the County on record as saying that patrons of County libraries "should have equitable access to e-books at fair prices."   The vote was 8-0-1.

One Councilmember abstained from the vote. Nancy Floreen, whose husband, David O. Stewart, is an author, said the issue of e-book pricing was "complicated," and said from the bench she didn't think the Council should get into the issue because it didn't have jurisdiction. Rather than raise a fuss, she said she would abstain and let the resolution go through. She, and Stewart, are concerned about how authors make money in the digital age.

That's a reasonable attitude for authors to take, but it is irrelevant to the discussion and the resolution. The Council first and foremost is speaking about an issue that impacts the County library budgets and the services it provides to the two-thirds of County residents who use the libraries.

If the County has to pay $50 or $80 to lease one e-book, it will lease fewer copies from the companies which supply the e-books. This fact has a couple of implications. First, it hurts the libraries because patrons will have to wait much longer for materials they request. Obviously there are limits, but some can be prevented.

Second, the high prices hurt authors. Instead of spending $80 on one e-book, the library could spend the same money on four if the book were reasonably priced. That means four times the number of people will have access to the author's work, leading to greater chances that he or she might find a reader willing to buy a book, to say nothing of the greater satisfaction of library patrons.

It's in the nature of e-books to present more challenges to authors and publishers than do printed books. Then again, as with digital music, publishers have been able to abolish through computer code that part of the law that allows for resale of any normal good. It's called the First Sale doctrine. If you buy a physical book, you can do what you want -- give it away, donate it, sell it to someone else. You can't do that with e-books. Every e-book is a new e-book. Authors should factor that into their equations also.




Thursday, July 18, 2013

The E-Book Saga Continues: On Defending Libraries From An Author


Noted author David O. Stewart has submitted a statement to the Montgomery County Council opposing a resolution asking for libraries to have equitable access to e-books at reasonable prices. While I respect Mr. Stewart's work (and that of his wife, Councilmember Nancy Floreen), I am deeply disappointed that he appears to misunderstand the role of libraries in our society.

Libraries do not exist for the benefit of authors. That's what bookstores are for. Libraries exist for the benefit of everyone. Access to books should not depend on whether you can afford one. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough said, "The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system." Consider the experience of a youthful Robert Redford: "I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book."

In fact, libraries benefit authors in their work. Samuel Johnson wrote long ago, "The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book." I wonder what it would cost an historian if he or she had to buy each book used for research. Quite a bit, I would think. Wander through the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress some time. I suggest you will find quite a few scholars working on books of their own, using this largest of public libraries to do research.

Libraries do not exist through the goodwill of authors, who, in Stewart's words have a "largely sentimental wish" to support libraries, even though through the goodness of their heart they are foregoing the income they are giving up by having someone borrow the book the author has written. Authors labor under the misapprehension that any loan of a library book is a lost sale. Maybe yes, maybe no. If an author wants to expose his or her writing to the public, the library is the best place to do that. People can sample works and then buy that book or another by the same author, if they like what they read. Research shows that happens.

Libraries exist as a benefit to their communities. They are a social good, like public schools which don't charge students for books. For the record, libraries do not, as Stewart put it, "give away" books. They loan books. Physical books are returned to the library. E-books simply disappear from a library customer's e-reader when the loan is up. I don't see where "the lending of e-books for free" is a problem.

Instead, the problem might be the nature of e-books themselves. Writers are harmed, we are led to believe, by e-books that never degrade. First, they never degrade if someone buys them, so that's no different from a library. Second, books degrade at different rates. Wander through a library, particularly the hardbacks, and you will find any number of volumes that are in fine shape. Not all books become "too tattered" to loan. Some do, some don't.

But publishers have taken it upon themselves to set arbitrary standards and policies for e-books than for physical books that have nothing to do with authors. In that case, those representing authors might be best served by signing contracts barring their works from being distributed in electronic form rather than charge libraries five or six times the cost of a physical book or limiting the number of check-outs. Those policies hurt libraries by inflating their budgets, which in turn hurts authors by limiting the distribution of their work.

Finally, Stewart's article lands us in the Constitution, but he leaves out a crucial phrase. In quoting Article 1, Section 8, clause 8 which provides for a system of copyright protection, he left out the part about securing rights to authors and inventors only "for limited times," as Framers recognized that ideas and discoveries should pass at some point into the public domain. That part of the Constitution was not written to protect authors; the goal was "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Instead, that part of the Constitution has been stretched to unrecognizable dimensions through copyright extensions which benefit authors, something Stewart also doesn't mention.

If the fate of the book culture is to "shrivel and die," as Stewart puts it, the cause won't be libraries. Just the opposite. If anything, it will be our libraries which keep "the book culture" alive.













Wednesday, July 17, 2013

MoCo To Take Stand For Libraries on E-Books

The Montgomery County Council yesterday voiced support for equitable treatment of e-books for library users.

Seven of the nine Council members supported a resolution putting the Council on record as recognizing that libraries pay more for e-books than do consumers and that it's time for Maryland and the Federal government to recognize the problem.

The resolution was sponsored by Council Vice President Craig Rice, the lead member for libraries, and cosponsored by six of his colleagues, including Council President Nancy Navarro and Councilmember George Leventhal, who is chairman of the committee that oversees libraries.  During the introduction, Rice said it was "extremely important" to highlight the issue of inequitable pricing.  Leventhal agreed that e-books should be "more accessible."

Here is the text of the resolution:

COUNTY COUNCIL FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND

By: Council Vice President Rice, Councilmember Leventhal, Council President Navarro, and
Councilmembers Andrews and Ervin

SUBJECT: Equitable access to e-books for Montgomery County Public Libraries
Background
1. Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) serve 721,385 (as of the end ofFY 2012) cardholders from all parts ofa large, diverse county.
2. MCPL strives to deliver materials in all available formats to meet the interests and requirements of those patrons.
3. The demand for e-books in Montgomery County is increasing exponentially. There was an 88% growth in e-book checkouts between 2010 and 2011, and an 87% growth in demand between 2011 and 2012. The trend shows no signs of slowing down.
4. Through actions of the County and its budget process, the Council approved an additional $300,000 in the Fiscal Year 2014 MCPL operating budget to address customer demand for e-books. This budget item supports the MCPL's Strategic Goal #1: "Strengthening Our Communities' Passion for Reading, Viewing and Listening by diversifying our collection to meet the evolving needs of our residents."
5. The needs of Montgomery County library users, as with users of libraries around the country, are being severely hampered by the actions of the book publishing industry. According to the March 4, 2013 pricing comparison from the Douglas County, Colo., library, which compiles such statistics monthly, the top book on the New York Times fiction best seller list is unavailable to libraries in e-book format. Nine of the top 15 books on the fiction list are not available to libraries as they are to consumers. The #5 fiction book, A Week in Winter, by Maeve Binchy, costs libraries $80.85 to license, while consumers pay $12.99 to license use of the same book. These prices place a strain on the MCPL budget and limit the access ofe-books to library patrons.
6. The American Library Association, of which MCPL is a member, has consistently protested this discriminatory behavior by publishers.

Action

The County Council for Montgomery County, Maryland approves the following resolution:
The Council believes that patrons ofthe Montgomery County Public Libraries should have equitable access to e-books at fair prices.

Therefore, the Council urges the General Assembly, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission to examine this issue and seek any appropriate remedy so that County library users will have the access to materials in a reasonable and non-discriminatory manner.
This is a correct copy of Council action.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Campaign To Lower E-Book Prices For Libraries Gets Started in Connecticut


While the e-book world takes a minute to digest the court ruling finding Apple conspired with book publishers to jack up the price of e-books to consumers, it's worth noting that there is another e-book pricing battle going on.

Consumers are the ultimate victims here, also, but those most directly affected are public libraries. Some book publishers don't lease e-books to libraries at all, depriving library customers of versions of popular best-sellers. Others set the lease rates exorbitantly high, squeezing the already squeezed library budget.

The American Library Association (ALA), and particularly former President Maureen Sullivan, have raised the issue loudly and persistently, but the publishers haven't been terribly responsive. Now, state and local governments are just starting to become involved on behalf of their libraries and the library patrons.

Connecticut appears to be the first state to go on record as recognizing the problem, while Montgomery County, Md., is poised to become the first local government to weigh in.

In Connecticut, Gov. Dan Malloy (D) on June 6 signed a bill requiring the state attorney general and the state librarian to conduct a study on the availability of e-books to public library customers. The study will have a broad mandate, taking in such topics as surveying current practices used by publishers and distributors (companies like Overdrive or Baker & Taylor, which supply the software to make the e-books available to libraries), to determine if there are any problems with those practices and if so, what to do about them.

The requirement of a study was the last compromise in the legislative process, which started out with a bill by State Rep. Brian Sear (D) "to require publishers of electronic books to offer such books for sale to public and academic libraries at the same rates as offered to the general public." That bill would mean the publishers couldn't charge the public $12.99 for an e-book and charge libraries $85 for the same e-book, which is the practice now.

Richard Conroy, head of the Connecticut Library Association, (CLA) said he got interested in a legislative campaign when Random House raised the prices on e-books for the 26 libraries in the south central part of the state. "The tripling of prices was the last straw," Conroy said in an interview, adding that CLA lobbyist Bob Shea said there should be some way to pass legislation to "hold the publishers feet to the fire." State Rep. Brian Sear (D), whose wife worked for the Connecticut Library Consortium, agreed to sponsor a bill.

The first version of the bill required publishers to "offer e-books for sale to public and academic libraries at the same rates as offered to the general public." That bill got the attention of publishers, who fought the bill in the statehouse and carried their complaints to Connecticut legislators in Congress. Conroy said the publishers calls the bill unconstitutional, said it abridged their First Amendment rights and generally "raised a big stink." The publisher team was formidable -- the biggest print publishers, plus Apple and Amazon. Even with that lineup opposing it, the bill gained momentum and cosponsors.

Conroy said he plans to keep working on the issue, and that he hoped the Connecticut bill could be a model for other states. That's a great idea. States should study the pricing of e-books, and pass on to Congress and Federal agencies their findings.