An Open Request to OverDrive: two ways to reduce library costs

With the effective shuttering of the IMLS, the executive branch has declined to execute the laws and funding Congress has approved, freezing $180 million dollars intended for libraries. At least one lawsuit is pending, but in the meantime, thousands of US public libraries who use this funding for digital books are now facing budget shortfalls.

In Canada, public libraries also face budget challenges. They anticipate that the trade war will increase their materials costs, which will require collection budget reallocation and fewer dollars for digital books.

What can we do?

There are two features that OverDrive could implement which would help reduce the cost of digital books for all libraries. Both have been proposed to OverDrive via account reps, but it may be a good time for libraries to join ReadersFirst in the request that OverDrive push cost-saving features to the top of their product development roadmap.

Enable a Save For Later list in Libby

In 2023, my Overdrive consortium requested an analysis of our patron hold behavior and learned that 20% of our holds over the course of the year were canceled by patrons. This behavior confirms what we have long suspected, that patrons are using holds not just for books they want to read asap but also for books of more moderate interest.

75-80% of my consortium's annual budget goes toward fulfilling holds:

• adding copies in compliance with our holds ratios

• replacing expired copies with holds

We believe that our high hold cancelation rate is due in part to the fact that the Hold button is the only low-barrier option Libby patrons have when they want to keep track of titles of moderate interest. A prominently placed Save For Later button on each title would give many patrons a welcome alternative to placing a hold, reducing total hold counts. Such a feature would also delight our avid readers, who are always browsing for new authors and titles, and who currently have no easy way to keep them in a list. (OverDrive has pointed out that Libby offers tags for this scenario, but tags are not low-barrier.)

Allow libraries to configure hold postponement

ReadersFirst reported in January 2025 on a large urban library that tested how often postponed holds are tying up copies and not allowing them to circulate. They found:

• 40% of their copies were waiting to fill holds rather than circulating, and it believes that this is due to patrons who are high in the queue postponing copies back and forth to each other

• Because almost all ebooks are licensed for 24 months, allowing copies to be stuck in in "postponement ping pong" minimizes the number of times copies will circulate before expiring, an avoidable waste of library funds.

To address this issue, we propose that libraries be able to configure the hold postponement feature to better control costs and maximize the value of time-limited licenses.

• Libraries should be able to disable the postponed holds feature.

• Libraries that enable the feature will be able to limit the number of times a patron can postpone a hold. Currently, it is indefinite.

• Libraries that enable the feature will be able to limit the length of time a patron is able to postpone a hold. Currently, it is 180 days.

This functionality will help libraries manage costs by improving the turnaround times on each of our copies. It will also provide better patron service since we will be able to optimize the experience for patrons who avidly want to read the titles on hold. At the moment, these patrons are disadvantaged on behalf of chronic-postponer patrons.

Summary

While some library systems have little dependency on federal funds, many of the large digital consortia of libraries have historically used federal funds to provide digital books to rural communities. These OverDrive features would provide much needed relief to those systems.

In addition, we encourage OverDrive to pass along every sale that publishers offer. And, as always, we encourage both OverDrive and publishers to consider whether this time of economic challenge for all of us — libraries, publishers, distributors, and authors — would merit the lower prices that would allow libraries to grow their collections rather than continually shrink them.

Price increases from three of the Big Five

Some of our libraries have seen unusually high costs over the past few months. We asked OverDrive to help us investigate and they shared that Hachette raised prices in May.

When we analyzed the price increase, we found that Macmillan and HarperCollins have also raised prices within the last year.

Details:

Washington Digital Library Consortium compared the price per unit we paid on Big Five titles in 2023 to what the price is now in OverDrive.

We found:

HarperCollins eAudio prices are now 8% higher than what we spent in 2023, and its eBook prices are 15% higher on average.

Hachette eAudio prices are 20% higher now than in 2023, which will be painful going forward because Hachette eAudio licenses expire after 24 months. Hachette eBook prices increased by 4%.

Macmillan eAudio is holding steady, but its eBook prices have increased by an average of 20%. Macmillan's policy has historically been to charge $60 for a 24 month license on a newly published eBook. One year after release, the eBook price used to change to $40. Now, Macmillan eBook titles more than one year old are $55.

WDLC confirmed the Hachette price increases with another large library system in another state and found identical data, so we believe these price increases are occurring for all OverDrive libraries. If you have questions or would like to see the data, please feel free to reach out to RF leadership.

eBook Study Group's Juliya Ziskina featured in SPARC

We are excited to share that library advocate Juliya Ziskina was recently featured in SPARC Online's impact stories. Here is a snippet:

"In law school, Yuliya Ziskina helped write the playbook on open access advocacy for students. As an attorney, she uses her expertise to push for policies that enable libraries to fulfill their mission to the public. She’s also leveraged her advocacy skills as a global leader on making the case for repurposing Russian state assets to compensate Ukraine."

(We checked with her and verified that she uses both Juliya and Yuliya)

Readers First members may know Juliya from her work as a fellow with Library Futures in 2022. Or, you may have encountered her more recently volunteering her legal expertise with eBook Study Group, helping libraries across the country draft legislation to address our challenges with digital library book licenses.

It is inspiring to learn that she also volunteers her expertise as an attorney in several ways on behalf of Ukraine. Juliya says, “Our democracy starts with available information, and public access to research and knowledge…This is the fundamental way that we protect our civil rights and our civil liberties." (She sounds like a librarian!) Juliya, thank you for your tireless efforts!

Digital library books on NPR's Planet Money

Our own Michael Blackwell spoke for libraries last week on NPR's Planet Money.  Thank you, Michael, for thoughtfully walking through the interviewers' questions and demonstrating the challenges we are facing with digital books.  You are always an articulate spokesperson, and we are proud to have your voice on this national platform!

Michael comments on the midlist author, who is interviewed first:

"One of the worst problems with current licenses is that they create a lack of diversity in our collections and disadvantage the least affluent among us by limiting libraries ability to provide a wider range and amount of content. The author interviewed (a midlist author from an indie publisher) is actually a perfect example: current terms generally skew our collections to the most popular things, greatly disadvantaging new/mid-tier authors whose works cost the same as, say, a John Grisham. I’m sorry she seems to think libraries are “giving away” her work, but this is not correct.  We know that some publishers tell authors that libraries are hurting them, but we actually pay far more for an ebook than for print. Fewer authors get to benefit with digital than with print."

Carmi wants to comment on the other person that Planet Money interviewed, John Sargent, former CEO of Macmillan. Sargent's talking points in defense of the Macmillan embargo are the same ones he used in 2019. Here are some questions that Carmi wishes Planet Money had asked him:

If digital library books are truly an existential threat to Macmillan, why did he permit the company to enter that market at all?

The library embargo has now been defunct for over 2 1/2 years. Is Macmillan going out of business due to eLending, or for any other reason?

What evidence does Mr. Sargent have for the claim that that the "friction" inherent in borrowing a physical library book is responsible for historical book sales?  He states "In the old days, I want to check a book out of the library. I get in my car. I drive over there. I go into the library. I find the book. I take it to the front..."  He thus implies that, because of these barriers inherent in borrowing, some people would buy books. But all of this travel-related friction also applied to buying books. You had to get in your car, go to a bookstore, find the book, take it to the front, etc.

Digital books do remove travel-related barriers for borrowers. But they also remove those barriers for buyers. It is easy to sit on the couch with one's phone and borrow a book.  It is also easy to sit on one's couch with a phone and buy it.

In other words, there is nothing about digital lending that makes borrowing easier or buying harder than it ever was. With both physical and digital books, there are only two real friction points that readers balance: wait time and price.

The librarians who wrote to Mr. Sargent to protest the embargo explained this in detail, but he persists three years later in explaining that digital borrowing works in a way that it simply does not.  He does so, even though the embargo reportedly lost Macmillan millions of dollars, and although none of his dire predictions for the company have materialized.  Why?  Is it possible that the friction theory was never the real reason for the embargo?  That, all the time, it was simply about squeezing a little more profit out of a convenient and normally cooperative customer?  What purpose does the friction theory serve, if not the truth? Well, it casts a billion-dollar international corporation as a helpless victim of digital disruption rather than a villain, and the story seems to have worked on Planet Money. But the facts are that Macmillan hijacked library service and made borrowing harder for people who can’t afford books so as to manipulate an affluent few into buying. Macmillan is not the victim here.

Blackstone continues library embargo

As you all may know, the Macmillan embargo of 2019 was not the first large publisher embargo.  The first was Blackstone Publishing, which distributes eAudiobooks for large publishers such as Hachette, Marvel, & Disney.  It did not place a library embargo on those titles, but on titles from its smaller publishing arm.  It created a contract in 2019 with Audible to offer up to 10 selected “home grown” titles exclusively on Audible for three months after release.  This exclusivity extends to library purchases, and appears to cover a range of titles, including exclusive eAudiobook versions of many works by Gabriel García Márquez (scroll to view the many titles with a ribbon stating “Only from Audible”).

Several libraries chose in 2019 to boycott Blackstone and Carmi’s consortium (Washington Digital Library Consortium) is currently still doing so.  I talked with Blackstone in 2019 and had reason to believe that their contract with Audible was for two years, expiring on June 30, 2021.  I wrote Blackstone a letter in spring 2021, requesting that if they renegotiate with Audible, they drop the library embargo requirement.  I have since learned that Blackstone appears to have renegotiated and has chosen to keep the library embargo.

I have recommended to my consortium that we drop our boycott because it is hurting patrons and clearly has no influence on Blackstone or Audible.  I believe the way to restore access to the content is to follow Maryland and New York’s lead and pursue legislative advocacy that would require libraries to be able to purchase eBook and eAudiobook content if it is offered for sale to individuals. ReadersFirst and its associated libraries encourage these companies to work with libraries now. Readers deserve access to all content through their libraries.