E-book lending

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An example of an ebook lending manager. Alfa Ebooks Manager interface.jpg
An example of an ebook lending manager.

E-book lending or elending is a practice in which access to already-purchased downloads or online reads of e-books is made available on a time-limited basis to others. It works around the digital rights management built into online-store-published e-books by limiting access to a purchased e-book file to the borrower, resulting in loss of access to the file by the purchaser for the duration of the borrowing period.

Contents

As of 2014, over 90% of U.S. public libraries offer ebook lending. [1] Many of those libraries use Rakuten OverDrive, which provides ebook access to about 43,000 libraries and schools in 76 countries. [2] Overdrive is the only eLending service that works with the Amazon Kindle, but that functionality is limited to U.S. library readers only. [3]

E-book lending is different from physical book lending. Libraries have always been able to acquire and lend physical books without requiring any special permission from publishers. However, acquiring and lending ebooks involves the making of copies and transmissions, which means copyright laws need to be complied with. As a result, publishers get to decide the terms on which libraries can access books for elending. [4] Since 2011, HarperCollins has allowed libraries to lend out its ebooks just 26 times before the licence expires and the book is deleted from its collection. [5] In 2018, Penguin Random House announced that all of its books would be available only on two year licences, after which they would also be deleted from collections. [6] Hachette Book Group makes some of its books available for library eLending in the United States and Canada, but refuses to do so within Commonwealth countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand. [7] Amazon Publishing is the world's fifth-largest supplier of ebooks, but as of late 2019, also refuses to license them to public libraries (in any country). [8]

E-book lending has become an increasing practice in the early 2010s for public libraries as well as independent e-book lending communities; the latter is increasingly viable, especially for books which are not available in the Amazon Kindle's Format, Mobipocket or Barnes & Noble Nook formats. Websites such as Lendle.me and bookLending.com have emerged to facilitate lending and borrowing of books between strangers. [9] In a survey of interlibrary loan librarians it was found that 92% of libraries held ebooks in their collections and that 27% of those libraries had negotiated interlibrary loan rights for some of their ebooks. This survey found significant barriers to conducting interlibrary loan for ebooks. [10] Demand-driven acquisition (DDA) has been around for a few years in public libraries, which allows vendors to streamline the acquisition process by offering to match a library's selection profile to the vendor's e-book titles. The library's catalog is then populated with records for all the e-books that match the profile. The decision to purchase the title is left to the patrons, although the library can set purchasing conditions such as a maximum price and purchasing caps so that the dedicated funds are spent according to the library's budget. [11] The 2012 meeting of the Association of American University Presses included a panel on DDA of books produced by university presses based on a preliminary report by Joseph Esposito, a digital publishing consultant who has studied the implications of PDA with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. [12]

Some publishers have feared that making books available for loan may deter people from buying the books. However, ebook lending has the potential to increase the discoverability of books, encouraging readers to try out new authors and genres, resulting in increased purchases. [9] The Panorama Project has also reported positive results when OverDrive highlights books as part of its 'Big Library Read' community reading campaigns. When first-time author Jennifer McGaha's 'Flat Broke With Two Goats' was selected for the April 2018 'Big Library Read', it was featured by over 14,700 US public libraries and saw its sales grow by 818% for ebooks and 201% (for print). [13]

In December 2010, Amazon introduced the ability for Kindle users to lend ebooks to friends for a 14-day period. However, not all books support lending. [14]

Alternative lending models

Amazon operates a Kindle Owners' Lending Library that enables paid Amazon Prime users to borrow from a collection of over 600,000 ebooks without any due date, with books being delivered to Kindle and Kindle Fire devices, but not to the free Kindle reading apps for other platforms. The same book can be borrowed by a number of users at the same time, and users may keep a book for as long as they want. [15] Alternatively, the books that are available in the public domain can be downloaded in different formats from many sites like archive.org.

See also

Related Research Articles

Interlibrary loan is a service that enables patrons of one library to borrow physical materials and receive electronic documents that are held by another library. The service expands library patrons' access to resources beyond their local library's holdings, serving as "an integral element of collection development" for libraries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Library</span> Online project for book data of the Internet Archive

Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization. It has been funded in part by grants from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. Open Library provides online digital copies in multiple formats, created from images of many public domain, out-of-print, and in-print books.

Mobipocket SA was a French company incorporated in March 2000 that created the .mobi e-book file format and produced the Mobipocket Reader software for mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) and desktop operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project MUSE</span> Online database of journals and ebooks

Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 university presses and scholarly societies around the world. It is an aggregator of digital versions of academic journals, all of which are free of digital rights management (DRM). It operates as a third-party acquisition service like EBSCO, JSTOR, OverDrive, and ProQuest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E-reader</span> Device for reading e-books

An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals.

The following is a comparison of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books.

Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. The hardware platform, which Amazon subsidiary Lab126 developed, began as a single device in 2007. Currently, it comprises a range of devices, including e-readers with E Ink electronic paper displays and Kindle applications on all major computing platforms. All Kindle devices integrate with Windows and macOS file systems and Kindle Store content and, as of March 2018, the store had over six million e-books available in the United States.

Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. They can also create their own groups of book suggestions, surveys, polls, blogs, and discussions. The website's offices are located in San Francisco.

OverDrive, Inc. is a digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, online magazines and streaming video titles. The company provides digital rights management and download fulfillment services for publishers, public libraries, K-12 schools, colleges, universities, corporations, legal industries and formerly retailers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OverDrive Media Console</span> Media player developed by OverDrive, Inc

OverDrive Media Console was a proprietary, freeware application developed by OverDrive, Inc. for use with its digital distribution services for libraries, schools, and retailers. The application enables users to access audiobooks, eBooks, periodicals, and videos borrowed from libraries and schools—or purchased from booksellers—on devices running Android, BlackBerry, iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod), and Windows, including Mac and Windows desktop and laptop computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calibre (software)</span> E-book management and editing software

Calibre is a cross-platform free and open-source suite of e-book software. Calibre supports organizing existing e-books into virtual libraries, displaying, editing, creating and converting e-books, as well as syncing e-books with a variety of e-readers. Editing books is supported for EPUB and AZW3 formats. Books in other formats like MOBI must first be converted to those formats, if they are to be edited.

ebook Book-length publication in digital form

An ebook, also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as "an electronic version of a printed book", some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barnes & Noble Nook 1st Edition</span> First generation Nook e-reader developed by Barnes & Noble

The Nook 1st Edition is the first generation of the Nook e-book reader developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The device was announced in the United States in October 2009 and was released the next month. The Nook includes Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, a six-inch E Ink display, and a separate, smaller color touchscreen that serves as the primary input device. In June 2010 Barnes & Noble announced a Wi-Fi-only model of the Nook. On June 5, 2018 Barnes and Noble announced support for logging in to BN.com and adding new content to the device will end on June 29, 2018. The second-generation Nook, the Nook Simple Touch, was announced May 25, 2011 with a June 10 release date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lendink</span>

Lendink was an e-book sharing website which allows users to connect with other users who are willing to lend a copy of a certain book, utilizing the lending functionality provided by the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook platforms.

Lektz is an eBook business platform developed by AEL Data, operating in the UK and India. The platform has DRM, ebook reader applications, virtual book store, ebook conversion, elending, consumer analytics, and digital marketing solutions for small, medium-sized publishers and independent authors. M.S. Mohammed Sadiq, Sr. Vice President of AEL Data, is the chief architect of the Lektz platform and it draws support from AEL Data's ePublishing, digitization, accessibility solutions, and application development services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oyster (company)</span> Commercial streaming service for digital e-books

Oyster was a commercial streaming service for digital e-books, available for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, and NOOK HD/HD+ devices. It was also available on any web browser on a desktop or laptop computer. Oyster held over 1 million books in its library, and as of September 2015, the service was only available in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Play Books</span> Digital distribution service for ebooks

Google Play Books, formerly Google eBooks, is an ebook digital distribution service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. Users can purchase and download ebooks and audiobooks from Google Play, which offers over five million titles, with Google claiming it to be the "largest ebooks collection in the world". Books can be read on a dedicated Books section on the Google Play website, through the use of a mobile app available for Android and iOS, through the use of select e-readers that offer support for Adobe Digital Editions, through a web browser and reading via Google Home. Users may also upload up to 2,000 ebooks in the PDF or EPUB file formats. Google Play Books is available in 75 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library</span> Public library in Silver Spring, Maryland, US

The Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library, formerly the Silver Spring Library, is part of the Montgomery County Public Libraries System. It opened to the public in 1931 and is currently located at 900 Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. The library is named for Charles E. McGee, a Tuskegee Airman who had lived in Montgomery County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kindle Store</span> Online e-book e-commerce store operated by Amazon

The Kindle Store is an online e-book e-commerce store operated by Amazon as part of its retail website and can be accessed from any Amazon Kindle, Fire tablet or Kindle mobile app. At the launch of the Kindle in November 2007, the store had more than 88,000 digital titles available in the U.S. store. This number increased to more than 275,000 by late 2008, and exceeded 765,000 by August 2011. In July 2014, there were over 2.7 million titles available. As of March 2018 there are over six million titles available in the U.S. Content from the store is purchased online and downloaded using either Wi-Fi or Amazon's Whispernet to bring the content to the user's device. One of the innovations Amazon brought to the store was one-click purchasing that allowed users to quickly purchase an e-book. The Kindle Store uses a recommendation engine that looks at purchase history, browsing history, and reading activity, and then suggests material it thinks the user will like.

<i>Hachette v. Internet Archive</i> 2023 American court case

Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive, 542 F.Supp. 1156 (2023), is a case in which the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York determined that the Internet Archive committed copyright infringement by scanning and distributing copies of books online. Stemming from the creation of the National Emergency Library (NEL) during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, publishing company Hachette Book Group alleged that the Open Library and the National Emergency Library facilitated copyright infringement. The case involves the fair use of controlled digital lending (CDL) systems.

References

  1. ↑ Abram, Stephen (2014-07-25). "ALA: 90% of Libraries in U.S. Now Lend Ebooks - Stephen's Lighthouse" . Retrieved 2023-05-12.
  2. ↑ OverDrive (7 May 2019). "Cityread London Goes Digital Through Public Libraries" . Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  3. ↑ OverDrive. "Getting started with Kindle Books from your library" . Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  4. ↑ Giblin, Rebecca, Weatherall, Kimberlee G (2015). "At the Intersection of Public Service and the Market: Libraries and the Future of Lending". Australian Intellectual Property Journal. 26: 4–26. SSRN   2647705.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ Jackson, Nicholas (March 1, 2011). "Boycott HarperCollins: Publisher Limits Library E-Book Lending". The Atlantic. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  6. ↑ Albanese, Andrew (September 4, 2018). "Penguin Random House Changes Library E-book Lending Terms". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  7. ↑ Giblin, Rebecca; Kennedy, Jenny; Weatherall, Kimberlee; Gilbert, Daniel; Thomas, Julian; Petitjean, François (September 2019). "Available, but not accessible? Investigating publishers' e-lending licensing practices". Information Research. 24 (3): paper 837.
  8. ↑ "ALA denounces Amazon, Macmillan in response to Congressional inquiry on competition in digital markets". American Library Association. 2019-10-24. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  9. 1 2 Woo, Stu (2011-03-11). "E-Book Lending Takes Off". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2014-05-09.
  10. ↑ Frederiksen, Linda; Cummings, Joel; Cummings, Lara; Carroll, Diane (2011-07-01). "Ebooks and Interlibrary Loan: Licensed to Fill?". Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve. 21 (3): 117–131. doi:10.1080/1072303X.2011.585102. ISSN   1072-303X. S2CID   62548634.
  11. ↑ Becker, Bernd W. (2011-07-01). "The e-Book Apocalypse: A Survivor's Guide". Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian. 30 (3): 181–184. doi:10.1080/01639269.2011.591278. ISSN   0163-9269. S2CID   62649317.
  12. ↑ Kolowich, Steve. "Affection for PDA". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
  13. ↑ "Community Reading Event Impact Report". Panorama Project. November 29, 2018.
  14. ↑ Pash, Adam (30 December 2010). "You Can Now Lend Your Kindle Books to Friends for 14 Days". Lifehacker .
  15. ↑ "Amazon.com: Kindle Owners' Lending Library". Amazon. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
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