Publishers Are Getting Nasty Now That Libraries Are Finally Fighting Back on Unfair Pricing- UPDATED 9/15/26

As many readers know, I have been fighting for months, very publicly, calling out the publishers for overcharging libraries for ebooks and eaudio. You can read all of my posts here or go straight to the letter of testimony I delivered to the IL State House in person back in March. 

Well, while I was on vacation the publishers showed their hand big time. That hand? They are scared of us. Our arguments about the unfairness and our pursuing legislation based on the fact that the pricing hikes for libraries violates contract laws and takes advantage of the taxpayers is working! If it was not working why would they pay for studies like this one. From the PW report on this study

Study Says Library E-book Lending Hurts Industry Sales

As some states consider legislating how publishers negotiate with libraries over e-book agreements, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild have released a report which found that increased e-book library lending is supplanting sales of print books.

Titled “An Empirical Study of the Impact of Library E-Lending on the Book Economy” and conducted by Secretariat Advisors, the report predicts that “decreases in library e-book prices or certain other changes to licensing terms, as required in recent state legislative initiatives, would cause further harm to commercial markets,” including publishers, authors, and booksellers.

The report’s authors emphasize the role of libraries as both public institutions and market participants, acknowledging that “collection budgets have not meaningfully increased even as states and localities expect libraries to offer both print and digital formats to their communities.”

However, the authors argue that the imposition of government controls on the distribution, purchase, and pricing of e-books and audiobooks in library channels “would effectively undermine the commercial marketplace by demanding more digital copies for libraries for less money immediately upon first publication with little regard for the larger ecosystem.”

In a joint prepared statement, AAP president and CEO Maria Pallante and Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said that “fully funding libraries should be an urgent priority for all lawmakers, and the Authors Guild and AAP stand firmly behind efforts that would increase taxpayer funding at every level of government and support new ideas for private sector support.” They continued, “It should be obvious to policymakers that both the mission of libraries and the intellectual property of authors and publishers are equally invaluable to the public interest, not a tradeoff.

Click though to read more. But as you can see in the intro above, they are clearly scared. They wants to keep bilking us for extra money but also, they know people are mad that they are picking on libraries in general and stealing their tax dollars in particular. 

Well we are not falling for it. Well, to be fair, some libraries are. They tell me, but Becky what if they stop selling to us if we fight? To them I say, you are joking right? With margins so tight already, 

These are the same people who obey in advance when it comes to soft censorship, so they can just shit their mouths. They are wrong and keep proving over and over again that they are unwilling to fight for what is correct when push comes to shove.

But I digress. Here is what I know about their scare tactics. The smartest people on books are not buying this crap. Take Ron Charles' Substack article on this issue: Libraries Are Not the Problem: A new publishing-industry study takes aim at ebook lending just as public libraries are fighting for their lives.

Click through to Ron Charles' well argued essay, click here for the PW report on the study, and of course, keep following my coverage and FIGHT here.

Important Update: My colleague and friend Stephen Sposato from Chicago Public Library alerted me to this VERY important article pointing out SIGNIFICANT faults in the study the Authors' Guild commissioned. So not only are they nasty and scared, but they are fighting libraries by releasing data inaccurately manipulated to make us look bad.

Please read and pass on.

Libraries Fighting Back [Together] on Unfair Digital Book Pricing [story via PW]

As I discussed in this post back in March, I have been actively involved in trying to get fair eBook pricing for libraries. I was in Springfield to jet rally support for IL House Bill 5236—The Digital Library Protection Act. From the ILA page Advocacy page about HB 5236:

What is House Bill 5236?

The Digital Library Protection Act, as known as House Bill 5236, aims to prevent publishers from imposing unfair restrictions on libraries when licensing eBooks, digital audiobooks, and other electronic literary materials. It prohibits contracts that would prevent libraries from performing their usual functions, like licensing materials from other publishers, using necessary technology for lending, making preservation copies, or participating in interlibrary loan systems. 

It prevents publishers from restricting a library's ability to determine loan periods, from charging libraries more than the public for the same item, or from limiting the number of licenses a library can acquire after an item is available to the public. The bill ensures libraries can continue to virtually share content for educational purposes and share licensing terms with other libraries in the state. 

In that post, I included my written testimony which was formally filed with the committee.  

Since then, the bill passed the IL House 99-0. It is currently sitting the senate but the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild’s denunciation of the passage of Illinois HB 5236. It will probably not get taken up until the Fall session due to the Chicago Bears sucking all of the energy out of the state house, but we are on the right track.

This denunciation by the Authors Guild is what I am currently battling against. They are wrong to oppose this. They are not protecting authors. They are actually hurting them. I talk about it in that previous post. Authors do not get more money when these books are sold for high prices to libraries, and in fact, fewer books by mid-list authors are purchased because of the high prices. 

Our next steps here in IL are to keep the library workers updated (I helped with a webinar on that), and, through me, reach out to specific authors to get them to support us. I am going to have to work to explain why they need to go against the Authors Guild-- which I support normally too, especially as we are connected with them through he HWA-- but in this case they are wrong to side with the publishers. 

Now that IL is making headway, 5 Large Library Organizations are finally speaking out to help those of us in CT and IL who have been going at it alone. We were the test cases and it is starting to work, so now others are reading to jump in and help us fight back. 

PW had this great article that will get you up to speed on the entire issue. From the first paragraph:

On May 27, five public library organizations from the U.S. and Canada released a statement, addressing the Big Five publishers and digital platform providers, in response to e-book pricing models. The Association for Rural and Small Libraries, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, Canadian Urban Libraries Council, Public Library Association, and Urban Libraries Council all signed on to the letter.

Please click through to read the entire article. It explains where we are on a national lever here. Things are getting serious and we are close to FULL VICTORY. Also take a look at the Joint Statement Letter (linked above as well). From that letter:

Our organizations, representing the vast majority of public libraries across the US and Canada, call on the Big Five publishers, as well as platform providers, to come to the table to work with libraries to identify and implement sustainable solutions, no matter the format.

Mutually-beneficial solutions exist. These include the importance of usage-based e-book models that guarantee our communities actually have access to the materials their libraries have paid for, and the option for libraries to purchase perpetual-use models so we can ensure the preservation of knowledge remains a cornerstone of the public library.

Public libraries protect copyright and invest millions of dollars in curating collections that increase author discovery and promote titles and reading, and our book borrowers are book buyers. We’re important partners for publishers, and have shared concerns including declining literacy rates and fighting threats to intellectual freedom.

It’s time for a new dynamic, based in collaboration and mutual respect, that can build off those shared interests. It’s time to finally address – rather than ignore – this crisis. This helps everyone – libraries, authors, patrons, publishers – thrive.

Thank you to PW's Libraries reporter, Nathalie op de Beeck, for covering this so well. Now everyone in publishing has a clearer understanding of what we are fighting for. I hope authors and smaller publishers begin to understand that the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild are not fighting for them like they may think they are.

Feel free to use any or all of my letter to the IL House, in tandem with the PW article and the Joint Statement Letter, to do your own advocating.

NYT Shares How A Book Gets on Our Library Shelves Considering Post B&T Collapse Issues and Why This is All Part of Our Inability to Communicate Who We Are and What We Do

I talk at length about how bad we, as a profession are at communicating with the general pubic. I have a longer, more general post about that here. But I also have a tag for "communicate better" because whenever there is a big library issue, we DO NOT GET AHEAD OF IT and that hurts us.

My most recent example (before today) is the eBook pricing issue that I have been working on fixing here in IL-- for years, but it is finally going somewhere. Click here and here for that. That second link includes my letter that was filed as part of our hearing for the House. We got through the IL House with a 99-0 vote and are awaiting the Senate to move on it. 

When we communicate our needs and how our processes work clearly, people listen. Even when they are frustrated. And today I have a perfect example, except it was not US who stepped up to communicate it was the NYT.

Let me back track. 

As we all know, last year, B&T imploded. Yes I know many of you were too busy scrambling to communicate what was going on to your patrons, even as it led to delays in books getting on the shelf. This was our first mistake, to not designate someone to get the word out far and wide using the same energy we use to get the word out about a program we want to succeed. This is our bread and butter. The books we collect on our shelves.

Putting that aside, even though I should not. I need to call everyone out a bot further here because every single one of us who used B&T has known for years that there were serious problems with B&T. Yes some was from when they were hacked during the pandemic, but they were doing badly before that and it never improved after. Yes it was shocking when they simply shut down and stop serving us with no warning...BUT, come on, it was not like they were fulfilling our orders in a timely fashion, and forget about seeing new books for months if you used their cataloging services.

We should have not only been ready for them to implode, but we should have also been hiring staff to help us process what books we did get and shed their shoddy service.

But I digress. 

Months later, many libraries are still struggling to fill the hole. And look, I am not trying to minimize how devastating this was to libraries everywhere and of every size. BUT we have stayed silent about what it looks like on the ground. As libraries are dealing with book challenges, a call to provide more and more community services, so many other things, our inability to get the bestsellers people want on the shelves- that we stayed silent about.

This was our chance to make it clear that we are doing our best, that what it takes to get a book from ordered to on the shelf is complicated. We did not do that, and as a result, people who would have been our supporters, have been angry that they aren't getting our books. BECAUSE WE STAYED SILENT. BECAUSE WE DID NOT TEL OUR STORY FOR OURSELVES. We lost a chance to garner more goodwill. 

But thankfully the book reporters at the New York Times worked with Iowa City Public Library to tell our story to a wider audience. 

Here is the excellent, clear, and full of photos article they published. I have provided a gift link for you all.

And the article goes above and beyond the basics. For example, they explain in clear and easy language, how B&T was not just a place to order the books, nor was it only the place to order and have things processed, but also many libraries used their suite of services to help them get the right number of bestsellers on the shelves, whether that was predictive ordering or even standing order author plans. 

When I did collection development we had the 250 standing order author plan. Those were 250 authors (we updated it each year) that I never had to even think about. Their books just came to my library. Now, libraries have to remember to order every single James Patterson, Stephen King, Nora Roberts etc...

I have heard library people tell me that some of these more nuanced things are too complicated to explain to the public. Well, this article just proved that argument wrong. 

Please, please, please...I am begging all of you, as a library, prioritize communicating who we are and what we do with your community on a regular basis. Share how the sausage is made. Make it a part of your normal marketing. Again, use the same strategies you use to get people to come to your biggest program. Be clear, open, and communicative with your community and they will be hairier with our services while we will get taken advantage of a lot less often.

Thank you to the NYT for telling a story all of us needed to be shared with a wider audience.

E-Book/Audiobook Advocacy Tools via RAILS and Becky's Reminder That Our History of Bad Communication Is to Blame

My home library system, Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS), has created a set of advocacy tools that clearly explain the breadth of the pricing problem on eBook and eAudio books for libraries, and take the conversation directly to our patrons.

They have also made it all customizable for you to use for your library and have provided ALT text for all images. I am sharing their communication on the information and how to use it below. You now have no excuse to not participate in this important advocacy.

As multiple states are trying to fight the publishers and make it illegal to keep price gouging us, we need to get the word out to our patrons so that they are also discussing this with their legislatures. Remember, these are their tax dollars and most people have no idea how much we have to pay to get them their books. There are still people, regular library users, who are shocked when I tell them how much we have to pay for eBooks and eAudio books. Then they are further shocked when they find out we pay that and don't even own the books. And while we think it sounds ridiculous I need you all to understand that many people are under the impression that we buy a books once and then have access to it in every format. And that number of people is statistically relevant.

Here is the bigger problem though-- all of this misunderstanding is ON US. As I have written about before, we are terrible at communicating what we do and how nuanced, hard, and expensive it actually is.

We make excuses as to why we don't communicate better. I write about it in that post. But, as I also write in that post, all this does is hurt us more (see the librarians as groomers issue for proof).

We are hitting the tipping point on the eBook, eAudio issue. Making the legislative switch to focusing on the unfairness of the contracts the publisher make with us (over the previously struck down copyright arguments) is starting to work. But now we need constituents to reach out to their legislators without us as the middle-people. 

The RAILS advocacy tools are a way for us to CLEARLY explain to our patrons why they should be outraged at how expensive it is for us to buy their books in the formats they want-- again with their tax dollars. And thanks to RAILS, you can easily access those tools here (and below) is the landing page for the information including the link to download a canvas template which you can customize, including Alt text for all graphics.

Get this information out in your newsletters, on social media, to your friends and supporters groups. All you need is a small percentage of the people you reach with these communications to make the next step and call or email their representatives for us to move the needle forward and stop the price gouging.

Full disclosure, I spent 3 years on the RAILS Board. This means I understand how much work they have put into these. It started back when I was on the board. You can trust them and their resources. Also the fact that they did all this work and are sharing it, far and wide, with anyone who needs it, well, that is even better.

Click here or see below.

RAILS Releases New E-Book/Audiobook Advocacy Tools

RAILS is excited to launch a new set of advocacy tools for libraries to build awareness about the challenges of e-book and audiobook pricing. These documents include an advocacy flyer, sample social media graphics, and sample copy that libraries can use to make their communities aware of this growing problem.  

The original version of the flyer was shared at the 2025 ILA Legislative Meetups. This document is perfect for sharing with public library boards, community members, and legislators.  

The downloadable social media carousel graphics can be shared across all platforms. Libraries are welcome to download the Canva template to add their logo in the lower left corner. RAILS has provided alt text for these graphics. 

There is also sample copy available to accompany the social media graphics. This copy can also be used in newsletters, blogs, or press releases. We encourage libraries to utilize these messages wherever appropriate.  

Working together, libraries have the opportunity to make their voices heard on this issue. By sharing these messages with our communities, we can build a greater understanding of the need for fair access to e-books and audiobooks.  

For more information about this issue, please see the RAILS E-Resource Access Pulse page.  

It is Imperative That We Do Better At Communicating E-Book Pricing to Our Patrons

We are terrible at communicating what we do to the public. Yes some of it is because it is difficult to explain a lot of what we do. Even after 23.5 years on my local library board, my husband is still confused by some of the rules we have to follow because we are funded by tax dollars. But some of it is because we just go about our business quietly, and as long as no one ruffles our feathers, we stay quiet. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about how my library is using September-- National Library Card Sign-Up Month as a chance to share what the library is doing and its value to our citizens. We are focusing on what you get for your prepaid library card and not on tallying how many new cards we get. We have shifted our focus and we have already seen great results (such as a local brewery giving us $1 per glass of a special beer they made for us all month long). Our Executive Director has already given two very public speeches about our library, our values, and what we offer our community (such as our mission statement and strategic plan which you can see here).

Back to our HUGE problem of being bad at proactively communication what we do and why to the public-- who pay for our services. This has served us poorly in a variety of ways. For example, every time a dumpster of weeded library books show up on the internet, people freak out. And then we have a PR disaster as we have to go back and explain that collections are always added to and deleted from. And also remind people that some books need to be "retired," and no, they aren't good enough for "poor people."

Of course, the entire rise of paid political agitators actively trying to remove books from libraries has been exacerbated by us thinking if we ignored the obvious illegality of their argument that the "problem" would go away.

However, today I want to talk about another issue we have been too passive and silent on for too long and now it is out of hand-- ebook pricing and how we NEED the public's help in our fight to get fairer pricing and user models.

Let me back up for some context. I am constantly correcting people-- educated people, library users, readers-- who think that when we buy a book for the library we get it in all formats for one price. They assume we pay slightly more than them, but they think for that price we get all those copies they see in our collections.

Sigh. 

These are people who support the library and use our collections. They love getting their books for a prepaid value. They want more access to books and they would be appalled if they knew what was actually happening. They have no ideas that 1, we pay for every copy of the same book in every format and 2, that we are gouged on e-book and e-audio pricing AND that we don't even own them at those prices.

As a member of the Illinois Library Association Executive Board, I have been a part of an organized effort across a variety of states to use existing contract and consumer protection laws in each state to force publishers to be more fair in the money they charge us for e-books and e-audio. The key language here is coordinated effort. Publishers are fighting hard against these laws in every state, but we are all using similar language and avoiding FEDERAL law (because that infringes on copyright and was already shot down). This state-by-state approach that is focused on consumer protection is receiving more support from legislators and making it harder for the publishers to argue against us. Legislators want to give their constituents the best deal for their tax dollars, not fight to have their money wasted.

Here is the language ILA is using as part of our legislative agenda not his issue:

Equitable Access to Electronic Literary Materials Act
Restrictions placed on libraries accessing digital content have posed a challenge in acquiring and providing access to eBooks, as publishers often impose restrictive licensing and contractual terms.  Most publishers and eBook aggregators force libraries to acquire eBooks with licensing terms that make it impossible to meet library standard access and preservation missions. ILA will propose legislation seeking to change this through a new state law based on consumer protection, contract law, and contract preemption to regulate library eBook contracts with publishers.

This is the communication we have use to legislators about this issue.

However,-- and now it is time to bring it back to the beginning here-- we need to also work on how we communicate this issue to our card holders. E-book and e-audio access is one of the biggest selling points as to why people should have a library cards. Our patrons love the easy access and the library of materials they have at their literal fingertips. We hear it form them all the time and see it in our statistics as well.

So how can we share this complex issue more easily? Well, to start, NPR ran this 3 minute story recently (audio and transcript access are both at the same link). From the intro to that story:

AILSA CHANG, HOST: 

For years, libraries have complained that e-books are too expensive. They follow a licensing model rather than a purchasing model, meaning that librarians have to keep paying for those e-books. Now legislators in a handful of states are trying to build momentum behind a new approach. In Seattle, KUOW's Clare McGrane explains.

Yes these three minutes are just a tip of the iceberg. But, it does introduce the issue to our patrons very well. Post the NPR piece and more resources on your website. Here is a link to all of my posts on the topic as well. Reach out to your state library association and have them share the language they are doing on this issue and their resources to educate others. 

Just start talking about it. because as I said here, I really want September to not be about tallying how many new library cards you get and instead be about how many conversations you have had with your community about what the library offers.  And how we use their money to serve them is a conversation starter. When they are being fleeced fort he things they want, when they know the truth, they will get mad and advocate right alongside us. Once that happens, our legators will take action.

Understand the eBook Pricing Issue and Then Advocate

My colleague and friend Jennie Rothschild at the Arlington [VA] Public Library has been on a crusade to educate the world about how outrageous ebook pricing is for libraries. You can access the full Twitter thread she has been doing for over a year here. [Scroll up to see more]

However, now that she has a year of data, she was able to crunch the numbers and make some solid statements about the issue. Her report entitled, "Hold On, eBooks Cost HOW Much? The Inconvenient Truth About Library eCollections" is now available on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website.

This was a complicated issue before Covid, and Jennie has been working to explain it so that the general public understands what we are up against. Now add in the fact that 2020 has brought even more patrons to our eCollections and her work is vital.

Read the report to understand the issue fully, but then please take the next step and communicate this issue to your communities. All over the country library budgets are being cut due to Covid closures and lost revenue. However,we have also seen a consistent rise in the use of our eCollections everywhere. Libraries are throwing money at these collections in order to satisfy demand, and yet, the public has no idea how much price gouging there is.

There are still patrons, regular library patrons, people who understand and appreciate the library, who think either eBooks cost for us the same as Kindle prices [under $5 a book] or even worse, that when we buy the print we get the digital download code for free [like you see with consumer music purchases]. In reality, the situation is so much different with prices averaging $50 a book and that is only for a certain amount of time or number of checkouts. We don't even own them!

Even I have had trouble communicating this complicated issue to patrons, but now, Jennie has created a report you can use to advocate for your own funding needs. It has graphs and easy to pull out soundbites. Please use it to create educational materials for your websites. Make sure to pass this report on to your funders...I mean it! Stop reading my post right now and forward it.

Our  patrons love and need access to digital materials, especially for their leisure needs. Let's make sure they know what our commitment to them and their needs looks like from the balance sheet perspective. Those are  their tax dollars. Libraries will be taken advantage of until the taxpayers join our ranks and begin revolting.

Finally, although I have thanked Jennie personally, I would also like to thank her publicly for her commitment to this issue, her advocacy, and for her data analysis. 

Click here or on the image below to read the full report.

How We Can [and Must] Fight The Publishers on Ebook Access in Libraries

Although I haven't written about it much here on the blog, we all know that our most pressing issue these days is the increasingly contentious relationship publishers are having with libraries re: eBook access.

For those of you who need a primer, here is a link to the MANY press releases ALA has issued on the topic. 

Things are bad right now. Publishers are trying to either deny us access to eBooks in a timely fashion, creating metered access, are gouging us, or all of the above! Authors are not 100% behind us. Some are, but take this recent press release from the Authors Guild where they stood behind Macmillan in their change in access for libraries.

That is not OKAY. Compare it to the 100% against position the ALA [and many others in the library world] have taken.

Honestly, as bad as the price gouging is, it is this metered access where ebooks disappear from our offerings after so many check outs that is the worst. This is a huge administrative issue because, one, when they disappear from our OverDrive accounts, that doesn't delete them from our OPAC records, so patrons will still think they can get the books and will be upset to find they aren't even there as an option for holds, and two, we are going to be dealing with a nightmare of when books need to be reordered vs new titles being added. We will all need a full time staff member just to monitor the expiring titles, decide if we are reordering, and then There is no way this will work in a cost effective or customer service friendly way.

Even worse, we will be wasting collection development level library workers' time as they spend more of their time doing the clerical work of checking every ebook holding instead of figuring out what titles our patrons would want.

All of this, by the way, means that smaller libraries will simply stop getting eBooks for their patrons because it will not longer be cost effective on multiple fronts. And that will hurt everyone, patrons, libraries, authors and publishers.

Of course in the library world we all know this is detrimental to the patrons, our readers, the most. And we all know that if our readers don't get access to these books, they won't read them, ask for more, and or buy more titles by those authors on their own.

Jennifer, a Public Librarian in Arlington, VA has an excellent Twitter threads that she is updating with pricing info for library books, print, ebook for consumers, ebook for libraries, etc.... This is a great project she is undertaking on her won to educate as many people as possible about the problem. [You don't nee to have a Twitter login to view.] Click here to access.

But us "knowing" all of this has not been proven to the publishers. As I have mentioned here on the blog before, I have been involved with the Panorama Project, the first data-driven project to show the impact of the public library on book sales and author discovery.

Their work is more important than ever. We need to promote, encourage, and use what they are producing in order to help build actual PROOF that limited library access to materials will hurt authors and publishers in their wallets.

Please get up to speed on what the Panorama Project is doing to help us fight for ourselves and our patrons. Below are a few key links that you can use to familiarize yourself with the project and some of the people working behind the scenes to help us stand up for ourselves.

• Panorama Picks: regional lists for booksellers based on library holds lists to help them have the books readers in their area are actually seeking out. [released quarterly] 
• Panorama Picks has an entire division devoted to the power of RA Service. Click here to access it.
• Magan Szwarek, one of the chairs of the RA section of Panorama Project was recently on the RAILS Sparks Podcast discussing the project and its importance. Listen here.
• And don't forget to check out my past posts on the Panorama Project, inducing our presentation slides from ALA Annual 2019.

We all need to be advocating for the importance of the library as vehicle for author discovery. We need to remind publishers that we buy MANY copies of the same book. We need to show how library checkouts lead to more sales by readers who seek out titles to own. We need to stop being anecdotal about how much we so for the publishing industry and start proving it.

Panorama Project is one step forward in this journey. Jennifer is trying another. All of us need to do something. Get on social media, write articles for the local paper, reach out to authors your patrons love, talk to local bookstores, find a way to do something.

And understand, this is going to be a journey. We cannot get complacent and just accept these new rules. I know we are all busy with a thousand other issues, but find some time to do something.

ARRT Program on eBook RA and Collection Development

On Tuesday afternoon I headed out to the 95th Street Branch of the Naperville Public Library to attend the ARRT Spring Program entitled, "eBook Readers' Advisory and Collection Development."

The presenters were Jessica Moyer Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Bleue Benton Collection Development Manager, Oak Park Public Library.  The talk was broken into 2 parts.

 1. Who is the eReader?

Jessica went first and set the stage by focusing her talk on the break down of the rich data collected by the Pew Internet and America Life survey that focused on the rise of eReading.  You can click here for the report's summary which also has links to the full report.

The highlights very briefly (in bullets) with my added comments (indented below the bullets) are:

• People are reading more in general because of eBooks.  72% of American adults read a printed book last year.  21% read an eBook, but of the 72% if adults who read, 29% read an eBook too.  To flip it further, 88% of those eBook readers also read a printed book
• Yeah! eBooks are increasing people's reading numbers overall.  Five years ago we were seeing numbers in the 20 percents of adults who had read a book in a given year.  And eBook readers don't only read eBooks.  This is also good news. 
• The increase in people reading an eBook on a typical day since 2010 is 4 fold.
• These big increases are because we were at 0 a few years ago, so this growth is not surprising.  At some point, however, it will level off like all new formats do.
• The vast majority of eReaders are between 18-49 with almost another 1/4 in the 50-64 range. But all of them prefer to buy their eBooks rather than borrow them.
• We are seeing that 50-64 range coming into the library for help, but the 18-49 are either doing it from home or just by-passing the library altogether. Not good for us.
• It is too difficult to download from the library (lots of steps) and the demand is so high, there really is nothing available immediately.  Since eBook readers also seem to be more affluent, they don't mind buying their books.  But they are reading on average 2 a month, so eventually it will get too expensive.
• eBook readers read for all sorts of reasons: pleasure, information, current events (especially magazines) and work or school.
• This made me think for the first time how key it is going to be to move our magazine subscriptions to a electronic model.  I love my New Yorker and InStyle on the iPad; I don't know why I never thought of it for the library.  Maybe because I am not a big magazine borrower.
• The mass market paperback is the format being made obsolete by eBooks
• Jessica pointed out that the mass market paperback is not very old as a format anyway.  The hard cover is not going anywhere though and that really is the library's main print book format.
• People who read eBooks get their suggestions for what to read next from everywhere but the library.
• We need to be more relevant here.

Again, this is a very brief overview of her overview.  The full report is here and I highly suggest you take a look at it.

In terms of Jessica's RA suggestions when it comes to eBook readers, she reminded us that eBooks are simply another format.  We need to be format neutral and remind patrons that we can help them find their next good read no matter the format.  We need to start advertising that we offer eBooks more and can provide the same services for eReaders as we do for print readers.

She pointed out that many people bring their eReaders into the library to use our wireless to download books they are purchasing.  Even if they are going to buy the books and not borrow them from us, we can still help them to pick a book based on their reading tastes.  We need to remind them of how much they need us.

2. eBook Collection Development

This data set the stage very well for Bleue who focused on the collection development issues of eBooks.  This is the area where I think we all need the most guidance.

She began by explaining the ever changing issues about which publishers are allowing their books to even be checked out at libraries.  Of the Big 6, 2 don't allow it right now, and the others have serious restrictions, but this is an ever changing issue.  Bleue explained why it is so difficult for the publishers and the libraries to work out a fair model.  I appreciated how she explained the issue from all sides.  It is very complicated, but the short answer is, everyone needs to keep working through the issues together and soon it will all be resolved.  We are talking about huge changes in pricing and delivery models.  The publishers still need to make money or they will no longer produce any books.

In terms of specific collection development, Bleue had many good points and suggestions.  Again, the highlights are below:

• We are so busy trying to keep up with demand on new titles, that we are forgetting to build depth in our e-collections. The mid list is especially underrepresented, and this is an area where libraries excel in print.
• Currently, there is NO weeding going on with eBooks.  This is because there is currently no way libraries can weed in OverDrive, but also, since most of the buying is through consortia, weeding needs to be done collectively.
• Because weeding is impossible right now, Bleue reminded us that we should be careful about buying eBooks like law and medical titles which do need to be weeded frequently.
• An issue I never even thought of--- some day we will be able to weed eBooks, but think about when we weed print books now.  We can resell them in our Friends used book sales.  We get a good deal of revenue from these sales (at Berwyn we get about $300 a month).  With eBooks, you simply delete them from a virtual place and they are gone forever.
• Since consortia are the most popular sharing model right now, there needs to be better pricing models which place a larger burden on the bigger users.  In Oak Park's consortia (which Berwyn is a part of) they are the biggest user (in the thousands) while the smallest user had less than 10 downloads.
• She ended with a few purchasing suggestions for building better collections.
• When buying, keep your orders small.  Don't go crazy buying too many titles at once.  Take the time to see how the titles you are buying are going over with patrons before adding more.
• When you have time, consider adding the back list titles of popular authors.  This will build your back list.
• Use a hold management system to automatically add titles when demand necessitates it.
• Buy lots of inexpensive titles to get your quantity up.  Everything they put on sale that your patrons would read should be bought.  Specifically, she mentioned that romance titles are very popular and a good value for the money.
• Don't forget that short genres do very well in the "e" format: poems, essays, and short stories.  They actually do better in "e" than print.
• Try to think of your "e" collections as a part of your entire collection and don't buy just by format.  In other words, consider the authors and titles you are adding to your collections on their own merit and then buy in all the formats you want for your patrons.

This last point was the most useful thing I learned at the workshop.  I am guilty of this problem.  We get so wrapped up in the new formats that we forget to consider the whole picture of our collection.  Our collections need to be consider as their own beast, regardless of format.  The same people selecting fiction should be selecting it for print, audio, and eBooks.  Too often this does not happen (it doesn't happen at Berwyn).  I think with the increase in popularity of eBooks, now is the time to remind our selves of this important point.

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So that's my report with comments.  It is not everything, but the points I thought were most pertinent to a large audience.

Please remember to go back to the full Pew report.

Also, No Shelf Required is still the best place to stay on top of "e" news.