1. Library e-book availability and accessibility varies significantly across platforms, countries, and publishers. Up to 50% of titles are missing from some platforms or countries. 2. Even where e-books are available, the licensing terms often prevent libraries from accessing them. Nearly all e-book licenses restrict lending to either a one-user model or metered access. 3. E-book prices charged to libraries have little relation to characteristics of individual titles or licenses. Prices can vary widely across platforms for the same book. 4. Greater transparency is needed regarding e-book availability, licensing terms, and pricing practices to understand barriers to library access. The researchers plan further surveys of libraries and legal analysis

1. The legal and social
dynamics of ebook
lending:
where are we at?
Rebecca Giblin & Kim
Weatherall
LP160100387@elendingproject

2. Physical books v ebooks
Physical books:
• Libraries freely buy and lend
Ebooks:
• Need permission
• Regulated by contract (can impose conditions, not
let libraries lend books)
• No deliberate decision to regulate differently
What does this mean for
libraries?

3. Our
team
• Researchers in law, data science,
communication (Monash, Uni of
Sydney; RMIT)
• Library partners from around the world

5. Author
Publisher
or
distributor
Aggregator
(eg
Overdrive,
Bibliotheca)
Library (or
consortium)
Reader

6. Focused Australian
study
Why? Understanding differences across
aggregators in single market
• 546 titles (prize winners and best sellers)
• Five aggregators: Bibliotheca, Bolinda, James
Bennett, Overdrive , Wheelers
• Comparison to physical books
1. Available?
2. How much $?
3. What licence?

7. Focused International
study
Why? Understanding differences between markets
• Same 546 titles
• One aggregator
• Five jurisdictions: Australia, NZ, UK, USA, Canada
• Same questions about availability, price and terms

8. Large-scale
International study
Why? Enables finer-grained analysis; the
‘big picture’.
• 94,328 titles (!)
• 380,000 + distinct licences (!!)
• One aggregator
• 5 countries: Australia, NZ, UK, USA, Canada
• Studying relative availability, prices and terms.

9. Checkouts database
Every Overdrive checkout ever for all of WA, SA,
ACT, Tasmania, Vancouver, Auckland
• 7,636,224 loans
• 192,786 titles
• 155,809 borrowers
• 761 publishers
• Loans range from 2006-2017
• Languages by title; languages by loan
We’ve used it to determine:
• Most borrowed authors (that gave us the sample
for large-scale study)
• Borrowing patterns: typical ebook is borrowed 6
times a year/13 times overall

10. Licence terminology
‘One copy, one user’ (OC/OU):
• borrowable by one person at a time
• perpetual (as long as the library stays
with platform)
Metered Access (MA):
• still one person at a time
• plus additional restraints (checkouts,
time, both)

11. 1. Books are missing

12. Focused studies: the
missing books
In Australia
Platform 1: 38%
Platform 2: 34%
Platform 3: 29%
Platform 4: 37%
Platform 5: 30%
Internationally
Australia: 30%
New Zealand: 29%
Canada: 30%
United States: 29%
United Kingdom: 41%
What proportion of the 546 titles are missing?
Physical equivalents unavailable in Australia: 6%

13. Relative availability: large-
scale study
How many of the 100k titles are missing
in each country?
• Australia: 21%
• New Zealand: 21%
• United Kingdom: 23%
• Canada: 12%
• United States: 12%

14. Hachette: the
Focused studies
Very different availability in different
countries:
• US: 91%
• Canada: 88%
• Australia: 4%
• UK: 3%
(NZ data not available)

15. Hachette: Large-scale study
Of 94,328 titles, how many came from
Hachette?
United States: 1,481
Canada: 1,384
Australia, NZ and the UK:
16

16. (2. But there are some hopeful signs)

17. Focused Australian
study
• Of 546 titles, only 6%
unavailable in physical form
• But 50% of titles not physically
available were available for
elending
 Suggests ebooks in libraries are
already contributing to
continued cultural availability

18. Focused International:
Availability by publication year

19. 3. Even where books are available,
they aren’t necessarily accessible.

20. 100,000 titles

22. 97% of titles had
zero
choice of licence

23. What does it mean for
libraries when ebooks are
available without being
accessible?

24. 4. Prices have (nearly) nothing to do
with the characteristics of individual
titles or licences

25. 5. There’s a strong case for greater
transparency.

26. You won’t find
anything.
Why
bother?
Nothing to see
here!

27. There was something
to see!
• 41% had different lending
models across platforms
• 22% had major differences
(eg OC/OU on one platform;
Metered on another)

28. 1. Publishers aren’t very
good at delivering
equal terms to
aggregators.
2. Even aggregators
don’t always know
what’s happening.

29. ‘Big 5’
Price
differences
across
aggregators
within
Australia

30. So that was 5 things:
1. Books are missing
2. (But there are some hopeful signs)
3. E-books can be available without
being accessible.
4. Library e-book prices have (nearly)
nothing to do with the
characteristics of individual titles or
licences.
5. There is a strong case for greater
transparency

31. What are we doing next?

32. Illustrative survey
questions
• How often are titles unavailable to buy?
• How important are price and licence type in
deciding whether to buy?
• Does the library have a benchmark 'price
per loan’ it tries to reach?
• How would the respondent rank different
lending models?
• Lots of other questions aimed at further
explaining library decision-making
processes

33. Then (finally) the law bit!
Do the practices we’ve uncovered justify
regulatory intervention? If so, what
should that look like?

34. Thanks for listening!
elendingproject.org
@elending project