Bookselling Barnes & Noble‘s Upper East Side location in NYC has closed permanently. B&N said to PL: “We can confirm that we are to close our bookstore at 86th St. and Lexington Ave. The store has served us well over the years but is now too large, and too expensive, for our needs. We have therefore made the difficult decision to close the store to focus energy and resources on improving our other bookstores in New York City.” The store closed in March due to COVID-19 and B&N is in “active pursuit of a new site” in the area. B&N […]
Libraries
Macmillan Withdraws Windowing for Library eBooks and Restores Previous Terms; PRH Discounts Digital Titles for Libraries
Macmillan ceo John Sargent wrote to librarians, authors, illustrators and agents on Tuesday to announce that the publisher will abandon their controversial eight-week window on making new release ebooks available to libraries. They will revert to their previous pricing model conditions. At the same time, they will also have promotional prices on some titles to help fulfill library’s needs during the coronavirus crisis. “There are times in life when differences should be put aside,” Sargent said. “Effective on Friday (or whenever thereafter our wholesalers can effect the change), Macmillan will return to the library ebook pricing model that was in […]
Public Library Systems Close Across the Country
As the nation scrambles to implement social distancing and control the spread of COVID-19, major library systems around the country have announced plans to close. And in the few large population centers where libraries are still remaining open, there is controversy. Among the 20 most populous cities in America, only the Chicago and Boston public libraries had yet to announce temporary closures by Monday morning. In Boston that led to an online petition asking the city to close the libraries and make the employees whole. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio had publicly resisted library closures. When the New […]
Macmillan Starts Discussions On Alternate Library eBook Pricing that Avoids Embargo Through Different Charges
Macmillan recently shared some potential new pricing models for library ebook lending that could take the place of their current controversial embargo on making new-release ebooks available to libraries in the first eight weeks of publication. The new models are intended to “open discussions on possible new library models,” and were shared with a small number of individual librarians, as well as with a number of library associations, including the ALA (American Library Association) and the PLA (Public Library Association). ReadersFirst, an organization of libraries from around the world, posted a file summarizing the proposals, and offered some of their […]
For Your Lawyers: Internet Archive’s Wikipedia Deal Raises Profile of Disputed Online Lending
Since 2010 the Internet Archive has built a massive online lending library of over 1 million titles based on a disputed (or invented, depending upon your perspective) view of copyright: They have scanned books from libraries, including a significant corpus of recent, in-copyright books, and lend the digital versions on the same one-lend-at-a-time-per-copy rule that publishers impose on ebooks that they lawfully license to library customers. The IA calls this “controlled digital lending,” which has been vigorously disputed in recent years by publishing organizations including the SFWA, the Authors Guild, and the AAP. That challenge may become more urgent now […]
Sargent Writes to Librarians with Respect, An Apology and No Change in eBook Windowing
As ALA leaders and some friends planned to visit Macmillan on Wednesday morning to drop off their petition with over 150,000 signatures objecting to the eight-week windowing of new-release ebooks to libraries that begins November 1, ceo John Sargent wrote to librarians in response to their abundant feedback. He opens, “First, I would like to apologize. It is clear to me that I should have written to all of you directly with our terms change. I meant no disrespect.” Sargent also makes clear that the company consulted with community members before finalizing its new policy: “Please know that this change […]