Presentation delivered at Internet Librarian 2014 about the current state of e-lending in UK and other European public library systems.

1. Helen Leech
Surrey Library Service, and
Shelf Free (www.shelffree.org.uk)
@helenleech

2. Half of all adults now own a smartphone (Ofcom
2013)
One in four households now has a tablet (Ofcom
2013)
We think seven out of ten Surrey residents has a
device on which they can e-read
PwC think the ebook market is going to overtake the
print market by 2017
Charlie Redmayne of HarperCollins thinks the book
market’s going to settle at 50% digital (Telegraph)
Around a fifth of library authorities in the UK are still
NOT offering e-books
Surrey spends 2.6% of its bookfund on e-books

3. Overdrive, Askews and Public Library Online (with WF
Howes, Bolinda and Peters just entering the market)
Popular fiction and non-fiction – not e-audio
One user, one loan
Epub and pdf
Digital Rights Management software is normally
Adobe Digital Editions…
… which means no downloading on library
computers
No integration with the catalogue. Third parties only

4. Overdrive arrives in the UK around 2009
Surrey libraries’ ebook collection launches in
2010 with a hugely successful campaign
targetting commuters
“Anybody, anywhere”
Overdrive’s controversial relationship with
Amazon
Penguin, Random House withdraw from
Overdrive
Beginning of the Dark Age of e-lending

5. Rise of the Society of Chief Librarians’
digital / ebook group
Discussions with the Publishers’
Association
The Reading Agency’s digital marketing
initiative
Shelf Free (www.shelffree.org.uk)

6. All Party Parliamentary Group October 2012
Random House release backstock November 2013
Sieghart Review April 2013
Sieghart pilots October 2013

7. “A key recommendation was that a series of
pilots be constructed to test remote
elending, based on one user, one copy and
that copy would deteriorate after an agreed
number of loans. The pilots are intended to
provide publishers, authors, agents and
libraries with an evidence base to assess
what happens to lending and purchasing
behaviour in those areas.”
(Society of Chief Librarians and the Publishers Association
Invitation To Tender, September 2013)

8. 1. Libraries don’t have the right to lend e-books. See
http://shelffree.org.uk/2014/03/12/the-right-to-e-read/
2. Authors get paid (via Public Lending Right) when their physical
book is borrowed from a public library, but not if it’s an e-book. The
legislation hasn’t kept up.
3. You can’t borrow library books on a Kindle.
4. Library e-books and e-audiobooks are almost impossible for
people with serious sight impairments to use. The combination of
registration issues and the Digital Rights Management (DRM)
software makes them almost unusable.
5. You can’t borrow an e-book in a library (unless you bring your
own device, and the library offers wi-fi. DRM means you can’t use
library computers).

9. 6. Libraries can’t host and loan e-books themselves. They don’t have the
technology. Third-party companies do it for them.
7. Libraries can’t buy and own e-books, which are licensed. If a library service
changes supplier, it loses the stock it has paid for.
8. Roughly 85% of popular e-books are not available to public libraries.
Publishers are anxious about how e-loans will affect their sales, and there’s
no legal requirement for them to sell to libraries.
9. Many library services help people to get started with e-books. They run
public workshops, offer training and advice, and take e-readers and tablets to
housebound users.
10. Public libraries in the UK spend around £78m per year on books, and
around £2m on e-books.
- See more at: http://www.futurebook.net/content/10-things-you-may-not-know-
about-ebooks-and-uk-public-libraries-0#sthash.YsP90Zsh.dpuf

10. The rise of self-publishing
Patron Driven Acquisition
The ethics of using our customer data
How much control we want over the
relationship with publishers
Public Lending Right

11. The importance of language – leading to price
setting
Library services are not necessarily statutory –
or free
Copyright legislation – EU Copyright Directive
2001 and the “exhaustion” doctrine
VAT situation

12. Germany publishes about 82 000 books each year (US=292k,
UK=149k)
One in four Germans own a tablet
Book market is in turmoil, ebooks rising slightly
Amazon controls about 45% of ebook sales (launched in Oct
2012)
Divibib is main library supplier
M-licence, L-licence, XL-licence
Some problems: “windowing”, Holtzbrinck group don’t sell to
public libraries, one publisher (Beck) asking triple the retail
price
620 out of 2100 libraries lend ebooks (2012 figures)

13. France publishes about 42 000 books each year
(US=292k, UK=149k)
One in ten people own a tablet
Book market is in turmoil
Strong support for the book as cultural artifact and
resistance to ebooks (but starting to shift). The state
sets prices and VAT.
Biblioaccess is the largest supplier to libraries
Low takeup, concerns about high prices, limits on
concurrent access, some publishers preventing remote
access, lack of interoperability
Couperin.org and French Ministry of Culture are
focussing on the issues

14.  Publishes around 4ooo books per year
 The creation of Elib in 2000 opened up e-lending
 Patrons chose the stock. By 2013 e-loans
were rocketing, but the system was flawed.
Librarians were unable to control costs, and
publishers were worried about eroded sales
 The practice of “windowing” by publishers has
led to the launch of a protest campaign by the
Swedish Library Association
 Now libraries can choose between an “access”
model and a “licence” model = better
management of costs.

15. Sweden: Atingo – a relationship between the Publit publishing service
and Axiell . = Self published materials and pay-per-loan
France: Library / bookshop partnerships via Pret Numerique en
Bibliotheque, at Montpellier, Grenoble and Aulnay‐sous‐Bois
Sweden (again): Stockholm Central Library – digitising Ordfront’s
backstock in return for lending rights
Czech Republic: Ebooks in all Libraries – libraries as part of digitisation
process, providing statistics about use
Netherlands: Qinqo – retail cards for ebooks

16. NAPLE: National Authorities on Public Libraries in
Europe. Website at http://naple.mcu.es/. Blog
at http://napleblog.wordpress.com/.
The Global Ebook Report by Rudiger Wischenbart,
available at http://www.wischenbart.com/
EBLIDA’s campaign – The Right to E-Read:
http://www.eblida.org/e-read/home-campaign/.
(EBLIDA is the European Bureau of Library,
Information and Documentation Associations.)

17. Helen Leech
Helen.leech@surreycc.
gov.uk
Shelffree.org.uk