At the New York Public Library, practically all of the ebooks are checked out, and the waiting list is usually 20+ deep.
Meanwhile, here’s the situation in suburban Virginia:
Want to take out the new John Grisham? Get in line. As of Friday morning, 288 people were ahead of you in the Fairfax County Public Library system, waiting for one of 43 copies. You’d be the 268th person waiting for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” with 47 copies. And the Steve Jobs biography? Forget it. The publisher, Simon & Schuster, doesn’t make any of its digital titles available to libraries.
Frustration is building on all sides: among borrowers who can’t get what they want when they want it; among librarians trying to stock their virtual shelves and working with limited budgets and little cooperation from some publishers; and among publishers who are fearful of piracy and wading into a digital future that could further destabilize their industry. In many cases, the publishers are limiting the number of e-books made available to libraries.
Trackbacks
[...] getting the public to buy an actual book rather than borrow it. A blogger at Actuarial Opinions complained that “practically all of the e-books are checked out, and the waiting list is usually [...]
[...] getting the public to buy an actual book rather than borrow it. A blogger at Actuarial Opinions complained that “practically all of the e-books are checked out, and the waiting list is usually [...]
[...] getting the public to buy an actual book rather than borrow it. A blogger at Actuarial Opinions complained that “practically all of the e-books are checked out, and the waiting list is usually [...]