Random House Ebooks Still Available to Libraries
Coming from RH/Knopf in April in print and ebook
Top executives from ALA visited New York publishers this week to present the case for making ebooks available for library lending. When librarians found out that Random House had asked to be included, fears grew that the one house that has stood firm in making their titles available was about to change that policy.
The rumor was completely unfounded, however. RH told both Library Journal and Publishers Weekly that they simply wanted ALA to know that, “Our commitment to libraries, as imperative to our momentum, if not to our existence as publishers, is greater than ever.”
One small hitch, however, a price increase will take effect March 1.
Librarian response has been positive, since this model is preferable to windowing (not making ebooks available until a year or more after release), limiting the number of circulations, or not making ebooks available at all. As a result, publishing news aggregator, Publishers Lunch “Automat,” commented in its link to the PW story, “It’s Interesting Times When Random House Raising Prices On Library eBooks Is Celebrated As Good News.”
Several libraries immediately placed orders on Random House titles to beat the price increase.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:05 pm
While it’s a positive that RH isn’t refusing to let the people buy books to share in their public libraries, this is another kind of restriction for libraries. If you pay more, you’ll be able to buy fewer books. Fewer books in public libraries = less exposure to authors, less discovery, less encouragement to read books. When the good news is “you can have our books, but you’ll pay more,” we’re really hard up for good news.