Re: Books to be replaced after 26 readings

"John Dean" <john-dean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
"John Dean" <john-dean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Not really. Just ebooks. Because, obviously, they wear out faster
than actual paper.

No, actually. Because they don't.

Is this my first whoosh of the year?

No. Read mine as "No. The policy is because they don't" not as a
simple disagreement with your obviously sarcastic claim.

I'd say that 26 lendings isn't an obviously ludicrous approximation
to the number of times a library can lend out a mass-market
paperback before it falls apart.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/06/ebooks-on-borrowed-time

" "Clearly, printed books last a lot longer than 26 loans," says
Philip Bradley, vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Library
and Information Professionals. His claim seems to stand up: in a
YouTube video, two librarians from Oklahoma took a random selection
of five HarperCollins bestsellers from their shelves and showed they
were all in perfectly readable condition. A pristine copy of Neil
Gaiman's Coraline, borrowed 48 times, would have been needlessly
re-bought, while Stuart Woods's Swimming to Catalina, still going at
120 loans, would be on its fifth, pointless reincarnation."

BTW, the video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je90XRRrruM

Four of the books are hardbacks (including the 120 loans item)

Which is in marginal condition and which, the commentary implies, has
been repaired at least once already.

but there is one paperback which has so far been out 25 times and is
still in excellent condition.

That's a trade paperback edition, not a mass-market edition. (It's
also a large print edition, although I don't know what that would
imply other than that it's unlikely to have been checked out by kids.)
It's bigger and bound better and would cost more.

The _Coraline_ looks to be a rebound version of the mass-market
edition. Presumably they bought that rather than simply buying the
paperback because they knew a paperback wouldn't last. I'd say it
harms their argument that they couldn't pull out a few mass-market
paperbacks that are well past 26 loans, never been repared, and are
still in perfectly good condition.

And, interestingly enough, the Neil Gaiman work carries a lifetime
guarantee from HarperCollins.

They corrected that statement to its carrying a guarantee from whoever
they bought it from. Likely the ones who rebound it into a sturdier
edition. It would be interesting to know how much more than the
mass-market price they paid for such a reinforced edition and
guarantee.

What I haven't yet heard a librarian say is "This is how much we'd pay
now for a book that we expect to keep permanently, this is how many
checkouts we'd expect it to last before it had to be replaced, and
this is how much we'd expect to pay in acquisition, cataloguing,
circulation, and repair on it." It wouldn't surprise me if the total
amount they'd expect to spend on a book was actually larger than the
cost of buying a new e-book every 26 checkouts.

But as I said, I suspect that this is the opening gambit, and we'll
soon see permanent licenses that are (1) more than the current e-book
price, (2) far less than the current total cost of ownership, and (3)
at least profit neutral (with respect to what they get for current
physical books) for the publisher if not more profitable.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |This isn't good. I've seen good,
SF Bay Area (1982-) |and it didn't look anything like
Chicago (1964-1982) |this.
| MST3K
evan.kirshenbaum@xxxxxxxxx

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/


.

Relevant Pages