Mandy 🌼 🌷 ☀️Mar 17

Another day, another instance of someone on the Fediverse telling people not to do something which is essentially a public good.

This time it's a librarian telling people not to borrow ebooks from libraries. The other option isn't cheaper, permanent physical books, I'm afraid. For many people, it's immediately available ebooks on pirate sites.

It's taken me so long to get my friends, nieces and godchildren to use Libby and BorrowBox (for audiobooks).

It is very disheartening to read something so exclusionary and privileged. I know most librarians want you to take advantage of anything and everything a library has to offer because their use justifies their expenditure.

#bookstodon

Show threadSpark Purcell (they/them)Mar 17
@mandy libraries being forced to use proprietary for profit services is a problem though, as is those proprietary for profit services screwing over library patrons, and infesting everything with drm (which is a capitalist scam causing books to disappear completely forever if not profitable, an idea which CONTRADICTS the purpose of a library--to share...)
Show threadMandy 🌼 🌷 ☀️

@ailurocrat I know that libraries in my town have moved with the times and have managed to propose and achieve funding for many controversial things over the years, including PCs, printers, CD audiobooks, and now ebooks and steamed audiobooks. The public wants these things, and this is why they move towards them.

Many public and non-profit businesses have to engage with for-profit suppliers. When I worked for a charity, all of our suppliers and service providers were for-profit and we obviously paid staff.

Yes, there is absolutely room to improve the ebook / Libby model - as evidenced by many countries trying to push through changes to legislature surrounding how authors are reimbursed for library book purchases and also how libraries obtain ebooks - but again, the answer is not to shame readers

Mar 17 at 2:34pmWeb
Show threadSpark Purcell (they/them)Mar 17
@mandy shaming readers? no, of course not. Shaming libby for exploiting libraries and their patrons? Always.