Simon & Schuster Demands Libraries Start Selling eBooks
Part of the new deal with Overdrive is to make libraries offer a Buy it Now button on their online websites. When patrons visit the online portal to see what digital titles are available there will be a button next to S&S titles to instantly purchase the book. Digital titles are very much akin to their tangible counterparts, where popular titles often have long wait times. S&S and Overdrive are betting on people not wanting to wait and make a purchase.
S&S mandated that the only way they would participate in contributing their titles to libraries in the US, was that if 3M, Overdrive and Baker & Taylor developed systems that would give people a buying decision. This is in effect blackmailing libraries to either start acting as an online bookstore or you won’t be able to get a wide array of tittles.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
Part of the new deal with Overdrive is to make libraries offer a Buy it Now button on their online websites. When patrons visit the online portal to see what digital titles are available there will be a button next to S&S titles to instantly purchase the book. Digital titles are very much akin to their tangible counterparts, where popular titles often have long wait times. S&S and Overdrive are betting on people not wanting to wait and make a purchase.
