Anna Baddeley 

Writers won’t lose out if libraries lend ebooks

The Society of Authors' suspicion of e-lending is misguided, writes Anna Baddeley
  
  

Ebooks, the new reading
Libraries must be allowed to lend books in any format. Photograph: Frank and Helena/Alamy Photograph: Frank and Helena/Alamy

Should public libraries lend ebooks? The Society of Authors has called on culture minister Ed Vaizey to address concerns that library e-lending is "undervaluing retail pricing" and encouraging piracy. The writers' union says it remains "strongly of the view that remote lending of ebooks is not an essential or primary role of an efficient library service".

Many publishers share this coolness towards e-lending, with only Random House and Bloomsbury still signed up to OverDrive, the library ebook platform. Hachette's CEO, Tim Hely Hutchinson, spoke recently of his worries that library lending could lead to "ebook giveaways for all". The theory goes that if people can borrow ebooks for nothing, they will have no reason to buy them. The same argument was used against libraries until it turned out that library users spent more on books than anyone else.

Accepting that libraries should be able to lend books means accepting that they should be able to lend them in any format. To claim otherwise is illogical and exposes a deep unease both with what "owning" an ebook actually entails, and with the whole concept of public libraries.

Piracy is another red herring. There is no evidence that library-lent ebooks are pirated more often than ebooks people have paid for. The Society of Authors is right to insist that the public lending right (which pays writers a few pence each time their book is borrowed) must be enforced for e-loans. There must also be a lending limit: paperbacks have to be replaced after around 30 loans, so it's only fair to apply the same logic to ebooks.

With these controls in place, there should be no reason for publishers or authors to fear e-lending. Libraries – which create readers – will stay relevant only by offering ebooks.

Librarians, publishers and authors share an interest in getting people reading. They need to work together to sort out e-lending, and their first priority should be to find an alternative to OverDrive, which is incompatible with Kindle.

 

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