Mastodawn

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.

The relationship between libraries and e-books is ridiculous currently and the idea that anyone has to wait in line to download an infinitely-copyable instance of an electronic book rather than simply registering that it's been borrowed and informing the publisher is mental.

I'd love for libraries to be awarded licences for ethical piracy, but that seems a very long way off under the hyper-commercialism we have today.

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Mandy 🌼 🌷 ☀️Mar 17

@ReggieHere for me personally, I find this argument a bit weak. I used to wait 3-6 months for some books in the 90s, so waiting lines are not new.

And why should an ebook be more accessed than a physical book? If a book is popular, and a library needs ten copies, then ten copies should be purchased.

I know the relationship between author, Libby and library user is muddy AF, but I'm sure an author would rather know a library purchased 10 of their books, than 1 copy leant to several hundred people at a time

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Reg

@mandy

Can't disagree with most of that, and I understand that libraries are tightly bound by copyright and licensing not least to ensure that authors receive the remuneration they're due.

My question is why, as trusted institutions, libraries can't also be trusted to register usage within the existing bounds of temporary lending rather than having publisher-led control and artificial waiting lists.