Do you know how libraries loan out eBooks?

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was go to the library. I would spend as long as my mom let me walking the aisles, reading random books and carefully seeking out the ones I'd heard about from my teachers (and occasionally from my friends) that I wanted to read. I'd come home with a big stack and plow through all of them. I was a library rat, to be sure. A book geek. A reader if there ever was one.

And I still am. Though admittedly I do a fair amount of my reading on my computer, iPhone, and eReader, I still love to sit down with a printed book and I still take a stack on vacation with me because one of the things that defines a vacation for me is being able to read whatever I want for as long as I want :)

eBooks and libraries

Libraries are struggling to adapt in the computer and eBook era.

Go to a library and you'll see rows and rows of desks with computer screens. When I walk by them I often see more than half open to Facebook or whatever else. Libraries are fast becoming a center for people who don't have a computer to use a computer. But while they have become a magnet for that kind of technology user, figuring out how to offer eBooks to patrons has consistently been problematic.

The problem with lending eBooks

The big problem with lending ebooks from a library is the fact that they are a digital file and publishers are concerned about lending from libraries taking away from their retail profits.

With a paper book, if a library buys one copy of a book, one person can check it out. When they bring it back, another person can check it out.

With an eBook  the reality is a bit different. The cost of producing the physical/digital copy of the eBook is practically zero once the background production is finished. And it will never wear out because it's not a tangible object. And if eBooks are at the library to borrow, why would a reader buy a copy from Amazon or anywhere else if you could download/borrow that eBook for free from the library?

Should the lending rules be different?

What publishers do

Each publisher has struck up a different deal with libraries over how and when libraries can buy and loan out eBooks.

Simon & Schuster, which has previously not made any of its titles available at any library, just announced a pilot program with NYC libraries where they will offer their entire catalog for unlimited downloads for one year.

Here is the overview of a few others (Thank you eBooks For Libraries):

• HarperCollins allows a library to loan out a purchased eBook 26 times. Then the library needs to purchase that eBook again.
• Random House allows unrestricted access to eBooks, but recently raised prices – in some cases tripling them.
• Macmillan and Hachette don’t sell eBooks to libraries at all.
• Penguin recently stopped eBook lending to public libraries.

This means that library customers can get a print copy of a book from a library, but can’t get that same book in an eBook format. But that’s not what our customers want. Our customers are readers – and our readers want books, in all formats, from libraries.

What you can do about it

If you're passionate about getting eBooks into libraries, there's a site called eBooks for libraries where you can keep up with all the latest and help them with their push to get libraries everywhere access to all eBooks.

It's a tough call in my mind. I want books to be available to everyone, but at the same time, we've watched what making everything free online has done to bookstores, record stores and movie rental businesses. I don't want to see libraries re-positioned as places to get the new releases for free. In that sense, having an embargo on new releases makes sense for a produce like eBooks  I think. But I do think that libraries should have access to all eBooks and be able to loan them out. What a publisher wants to charge for those eBooks  well, that's up to them and up to the market. That's how it works with paperback and hardcover books.

What do you all think? Should eBooks all be free to borrow from libraries with no restrictions? Are the publishers right to be cautious?

And have you ever checked out eBooks from your local library?

Images courtesy of GWSA via flickr and eBooks for Libraries