Macmillan CEO John Sargent on eBooks Possibly Causing a Change in Publisher/Library Relationship
The other day, Macmillan CEO John Sargent spoke at “Publishing Point“ Meetup Group in New York City. Lucky for us, Eric Hellman from the "Go to Hellman" blog was at the event and wrote an excellent blog post titled, "eBooks in Libraries a Thorny Problem, Says Macmillan CEO." It's a post that is worthy of your time to read.
Hellman asked John Sargent if he had done any thinking about the role libraries and more specifically public libraries play in the distribution of e-books.
His answer indicated that just as he was not afraid of changing the relationship with Amazon, Sargent is not afraid of changing the publisher's relationship with libraries. In fact, change may well be required.
"That is a very thorny problem", said Sargent. In the past, getting a book from libraries has had a tremendous amount of friction. You have to go to the library, maybe the book has been checked out and you have to come back another time. If it's a popular book, maybe it gets lent ten times, there's a lot of wear and tear, and the library will then put in a reorder. With ebooks, you sit on your couch in your living room and go to the library website, see if the library has it, maybe you check libraries in three other states. You get the book, read it, return it and get another, all without paying a thing. "It's like Netflix, but you don't pay for it. How is that a good model for us?"
Hellman, who is also knowledgeable in the workings of libraries, adds:
Sargent has clearly thought about libraries, but perhaps he's not talked much to them. His points are valid- the existing business relationship between publishers and libraries won't work for ebooks the way it has worked for print books and the "frictions" that exist for print materials could disappear for ebooks.
Hellman continues by saying that some of Sargent has some "gaps of knowledge" about library models and then shares some examples. Next, he mentions models "preferred" by libraries. Hellman believes that a subscription model will probably work for academic libraries but, it would turn public libraries into unnecessary intermediaries," while perpetual access would be "suicide" for publishers.
Hellman concludes by saying that this is the time for publishers and libraries to talk to one another to develop new business models.
Note: The ResourceShelf team would be interested to learn how many public libraries are building their own collection of e-Books vs. accessing them through OverDrive, NetLibrary, and other providers. I would think OverDrive and others also need to be at the discussion table. OverDrive literature says they work with over 10,000 libraries (we will try to find out how many are public) and as we monitor the news each day, we often see items about e-Books and audiobooks becoming available at x public library. Most often, it appears that OverDrive is the provider. I have also seen some public libraries that offter material from NetLibrary and OverDrive. What are the short term and long term implications about what Sargent said for these companies?
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