Dimensions in business models for public library e-lending
Based on situation in five European casesdimension vs.
content ownership unlimited: long term access and preservation
limited: temporary access, no preservation by PLs
content selection all titles which have been published & are for sale
what publishers allow libraries to access
national PL umbrella/institution local public libraries
content distribution offline use (download) online use (streaming)
on site (in library branch) remote lending (from home)
distribution platform publicly owned distribution platform privately owned
payment/price high fee per title, low/no fee per lending no/low fee per title, high fee per lending
by government/PL umbrella (collective agreement)
by end user (pay per use)
after …% of pages has been read after 1st page has been turned
no differentiation recent/older titles differentiation: head – shoulder – long tail
dimension vs.
‘friction’ strategies none: titles immediately and available for lending
windowing (embargo period); ‘one copy, one user’ or max # of lendings p. license; queuing co-operation PLs and publishers join forces, develop
platform; lending & selling via platform
animosity, concurrence (publishers market e- books for e-lending as well)
competition none web retailers (Amazon, Apple); booksellers;
consortia publishers/booksellers
DRM none strong DRM; social DRM (‘watermarking’)
government protection measures
none low VAT; fixed book price;
booksellers between publishers and PLs
VAT low: e-book=‘product’
(content)
high: e-book=‘service’
(license)
Compiled by Jan Braeckman, director, Bibnet Flanders & Frank Huysmans, University of Amsterdam/WareKennis research & consultancy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
