The good folks at Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries have a special Christmas gift for those of us working on the many ebook issues libraries face. This price comparison (PDF file) is based on Amazon’s bestsellers as of December 1, so it features a number of holiday books. One that stands out is Frozen (The Ultimate Sticker Book) for which there is no ebook equivalent.
The Digital Content Working Group will award a prize to the first person who comes up with a way to make stickers from an ebook. Then we’ll sell the idea to a publisher in exchange for reasonable ebook pricing for libraries.
In the spirit of the season, let’s start with the good news. With the major publishers now offering their ebooks to libraries, there are no significant gaps in availability. No coal in their stockings this year.
But before we offer the wassail bowl to our friends in publishing we have to look at the ongoing pricing situation. A comparison of consumer pricing for the same ebook titles from Amazon with library pricing from OverDrive reveals a ratio of 5.76. Libraries are paying 5.76 times the consumer price for ebooks, with Random House and Hachette Book Group leading the way with high prices. The tradeoff for the high price is perpetual access. But the question that dogs many librarians is whether perpetual access is worth the price, because many libraries license access to ebooks solely to meet current demand. More on this in future posts.
Best wishes to all this holiday season, and especially to the elves at the Office for Information Technology Policy!
ROBERT C. MAIER is a member of the ALA Digital Content Working Group.