I take full advantage of my public library system, particularly managing my account online so that I can place holds on titles I am eager to read.
Sometimes, there are two options for placing a hold – I can request a physical book be sent to my local branch, or I can request to be put on the waiting list for an e-book to download.
It’s rare that I have a hugely strong preference for one format over the other. Given that I don’t care if the book is an e-book or an actual book, does the library have a preference?
From the library’s side, it seems the main pro of an e-book being borrowed is that it is automatically returned immediately when the lending period is up. The con, I guess, would be that I’m burning one of the instances of how many times the library can lend that title under their licensing agreement.
I have heard, but don’t really know, that requesting an actual book be sent to my local branch bolsters the usage numbers of that particular branch, and in theory, I would be on board with supporting that. A con for the library is that they don’t know if I will lose, destroy, or eat up significant time holding onto their book … I’m a pretty good library patron and return books promptly in good condition, but I understand the library can’t assume that about any given borrower.
So if you are a librarian, would you rather have someone request a book to check out at your branch, or use the e-book option … or do you really not care at all?
I don’t care either. I do like it more when you come in the building just because the interaction gives us an opportunity to tell you about programming or find out if you found everything you were looking for or whatever, though.
As a school librarian, I prefer an unlimited use ebook if it’s one that lots of students will need at once. Otherwise, it doesn’t pay. That said, I don’t have any particular attraction to physical books. I like finding information, and the format doesn’t much matter to me. Sitting down and reading more than a few pages of anything is torture for me anyway.
I’m in the branch building a lot anyway, I bring my kid to a lot of programs, and it’s right across the street from where we live. So I guess that’s what I was thinking about, if I’m not checking out a book at the desk because I already checked out e-books from the comfort of my home, is that a disservice to the branch’s usage numbers?
Of course this is mostly an academic question, because plenty of titles are only available in one format, not both. I am still checking out plenty of “book books,” as I mentally call them.
Usage numbers are usage numbers. An eBook circulation counts the same as a physical book circulation in the grand scheme of things. If your system uses Overdrive, it may even may be able to tag it to a specific branch when you first set up your device, but I’m not entirely sure about that.
And the vast majority of librarians count patrons in the door too. So even if you don’t check anything out physically, you’re still counting towards the stats.
As an academic librarian, I also don’t care. They’re both a use of the item. The only time they’re going to come into play is if we’re trying to make a case for a bump in our collections budget or if we were trying to make a case for more space, as would be the case if we were growing our physical collections.
Short answer, circs are circs are circs. You’re getting a resource from the library, it’s getting tracked, that’s the important part.
Random longer thoughts.
Physical holds are good for job security for staff - someone has to access your request, retrieve it from the shelf, transport it to where it needs to go, place it in the reserve area, contact you regarding it, and then physically give it to you. Ebooks don’t require any of that.
Our physical collection often has more available copies than our ebook collection, which can dramatically reduce the wait time even on something with many people ahead of you in line. So, if there is a waiting list 40 people deep for the physical book, but we have 20 copies to circulate, that’s actually a shorter wait list than the ebook with three holds ahead of you, but we only have the one single copy. Lots of people don’t realize that.
Finally, if you actually come in, we can hope for ‘value added services’ - tell you about programs, sign you up for summer reading, get your kids into an activity, help you with a resume or making copies/scans, help you find your granddad’s service record for your genealogy research… All of that also counts in our statistics, which helps us stay funded and open. If you get ebooks, we can’t offer those services online (yet - we’re working on it).
But personally, it doesn’t matter to me - I’m just glad we have the resources in print either physically or electronically to meet people’s needs. I figure if someone already knows the library has free rental ebooks, they probably also know we have programs and scanners and genealogical historians on staff, and they know where to find us when they need us.
This is one of my favorite things, as my library’s online request system very helpfully tells you what number hold you are of how many copies, so it says you are #10 in line for 5 copies, for both actual and e- books. I try to guess which will be the shorter wait. For hard copies, you have to trust that people bring them back on time, but especially with longer books, I suspect a significant number of people might keep them past due.
For e-books, they check in automatically, so it can’t go past the number of lending days per copy. But even though I try to return e-books as soon as I am finished, I know I occasionally forget and I don’t worry about it THAT much because it can’t ever be overdue.
I would love to see data about rate of return of each method of checking out books.
From what I have seen from vendors, they prefer most systems to have a centralized e-book collection, but there are also enormous library systems and consortia that have to break it up.
Regardless, ebooks are usually counted not for a specific location (ie, the Main or Central Library), but as a different category that encompasses the whole system.
In addition (our system does this) systems can sometimes track which location a patron belongs to, and sort ebook tallies by the patron’s home library location to sort out specific location-based statistics for ebook usage.
You obviously have different contracts from ours. The vendors we deal with have to obey the publishers’ one ebook = one paper book, one-patron-at-a-time rules.
I have done that by accident! It rocks, the wait IS shorter. But I feel a little guilty doing it on purpose, taking it away from someone who really needs the large print.
Another librarian checking in to say it doesn’t matter…
Realistically, that ship has sailed. Libraries (at least the smart ones) have already re-branded away from being physical book depots. It’s now a service they offer, instead of a definition.
But I feel a little guilty doing it on purpose, taking it away from someone who really needs the large print.