![]() Context: Why E-Lending Causes Tension Between Publishers and Librariesĭespite their differences, one similarity among the Big Five is why e-lending causes tension between them and libraries. ![]() This leaves Macmillan as the only publisher placed solely in the resister category, as they were the only publisher in the late 2010s to take an aggressive step away from e-lending. While they were one of the last Big publishers to start e-lending, their personality closer aligned with Hachette and Penguin’s than Macmillan’s. Simon & Schuster straddles the line between follower and resister. Hachette and Penguin fall into the second category, by acting according to the standards set by the former. They set precedents that the other Big publishers followed. HarperCollins and Random House are in the first category, as they were the first to challenge traditional e-lending models. The previously Big Six publishers-HarperCollins, Random House, Penguin, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan-loosely fall into three categories: pioneers, followers, and resisters. It is critical to unravel each Big publisher’s e-lending history and relationship with libraries, as this full and complex history will help readers understand the significance of the 2020 library closures. Contrary to current literature, each of the Big Five forged their own relationship and e-lending practices with libraries over the years. Thus, the goal of this paper is twofold: to comprehensively document all the important milestones within the overall history of e-lending-which includes an analysis of the data, trends, and role of the media in telling this narrative-and detail the histories of each of the Big Five’s e-lending practices. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, as the history of this topic is more complicated than the current literature makes it seem. Current literature has made the relationship sound simple: the Big Five supposedly have a contentious relationship with libraries, as both have naturally contrarian goals, and 2020 represented the first time these publishers chose to play nice with libraries. In order to understand the significance of this feat, however, it’s essential to know the context surrounding it. Thus, in a historically beautiful moment, both publishers and libraries came out of the COVID-19 library closures as winners. Footnote 4 These assistances allowed libraries to meet the new demand they saw for ebooks, and e-lending broke record numbers, while publishers’ ebook sales simultaneously increased. Footnote 2 Significantly, in an effort to help libraries, the Big Five publishers made favorable changes to their library ebook prices, policies, or catalogs, Footnote 3 and helped libraries reach their communities digitally in a variety of other ways. Libraries thrived-seeing unprecedented increases to e-lending Footnote 1-and publishers’ ebook sales increased for the first time since the mid-2010s. That March, both sides of the industry held their breath and tried adapting to the new normal, where ebooks were the sole lending option for written material-and fortunately, both libraries and publishers saw success during this turbulent time. The question “does e-lending negatively impact ebook sales?” went largely unanswered until 2020. However, they were frustrated by the Big Five-who they perceived as being weary to enter the market-and found the various licensing provisions from the publishers largely unacceptable. Libraries, on the other hand, were simply trying to fulfill their social mission. The Big Five, unsure of how to protect the financial prosperity of the disruptive technology, grappled with how to have ebooks in libraries without impacting their sales figures. In the years leading up to the pandemic-particularly the decade of the 2010s-the ebook lending (e-lending) business was complicated, especially between the Big Five publishers and public libraries. But patrons weren’t the only ones affected-both the publishing and library communities were nervous about what this change meant for their businesses. This meant an ebook was the only type of written book a patron could borrow. Public libraries, for the first time in their history, closed their doors and library patrons could only access digital content. In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic started spreading rapidly throughout the United States.
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