Action Alert! Email Harper Collins!

Take note. Rarely will you have such a chance to so DIRECTLY impact your public library's daily operations as you will with the information I am about to give you. And kudos to Children's Librarian Colleen Crowley for the heads-up.

Here's what going on: Harper Collins has just changed its policy regarding the EBooks that libraries have access to through download services like OverDrive. We in Wisconsin get access to OverDrive as part of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium. Up to now, libraries bought de facto "eternal rights" to EBooks and patrons could download them an unlimited number of times. Harper Collins has now arranged things so that libraries & consortia will have to re-purchase the rights after the books are downloaded 26 times.

When the books are owned as part of a consortium, as ours are, even more difficulties arise from such tallying. If the books are held in common by the libraries of an entire state and the patrons of only one library download a book the aforementioned 26 times, do all the rest of them then miss out? Harper Collins says not to worry about it, because they'll figure out how to handle it. They'll just plant a cookie or tracker of some kind in individual libraries' circulation modules, maybe. After 26 checkouts, POOF! Shell out another $25.00 per library. Or per user. Or something. Nobody is quite sure yet.

This thinking shows that the publisher has no conception of how complicated a library consortium's circulation procedures are. Maybe I'm just not tech-savvy enough to see a cost-effective, customer-friendly solution, but this might just put libraries out of the EBook business altogether.

Joe Atzberger, library geek out of Columbus, Ohio explains it better than I do here:

New OverDrive DRM terms: "This message will self-destruct"

Now, I don't own an EBook reader or iPad or any of that stuff. I was actually thinking of buying a few for the library when this came down. Those who do own these things--and Christmas 2010 was the first really big year for these technologies--will find their local libraries less relevant than they were just two weeks ago because of these changes. As a consumer, the timing strikes me as cynical: squeeze libraries out of the equation after so many people have bought these devices to make sure they have to purchase content on top of the initial platform investment. Not to mention the fact that many libraries are already having serious budget issues.

As a librarian, it further frustrates me because libraries will end up taking the public relations fall. Downloading EBooks is already a complicated affair; now librarians will have to explain that a patron can't get Band of Brothers because 26 people have already read it. I can imagine the puzzled looks now.

If you own a device with which you might download and read Ebooks, Email Harper Collins and let them know that you, as a Wisconsin library user, disapprove of their tactics and timing. Tell a friend, too.