DCL Ebook Report, April 2015

By Robert C. Maier | April 15, 2015

DCL Report, Apr. 2015 The Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries Pricing Comparison for April (PDF file) shows a continuing trend with library ebook prices running at an average of 5.3 times the consumer price. This month’s comparison is based on the Digital Book World top 25 ebook bestsellers as of March 21. But it doesn’t seem to matter which bestseller list is used, the ratio is between 5 to 1 and 6 to 1.

Looking back at the last few months we find:

January 2015, New York Times, a ratio of 5.7
February 2015, USA Today, a ratio of 6.0
March 2015, New York Times, a ratio of 5.0
April 2015, Digital Book World, a ratio of 5.3

As this blog has noted many times before, libraries can’t meet the demand for ebooks paying five to six times the consumer price. This pricing model is simply not sustainable.

ROBERT C. MAIER is a member of the ALA Digital Content Working Group.

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DCL Ebook Report, April 2015

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