1Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
The Digital Public Library Ecosystem is the
network of digital book collection and circulation
specifically through public libraries.
Digital book collection and circulation have never
been more important than they are today. Nearly 1 in
3 Americans has read an ebook in the last 12 months.
Audiobook listening is also high; nearly 1 in 4 Ameri-
cans has listened to an audiobook in that same time
period.
1
Libraries are one way in which readers gain
access to ebooks and audiobooks. Despite this, a
holistic view of the digital library ecosystem is largely
opaque.
Three factors contribute to current confusion
about the digital public library ecosystem. One,
essential terms like reading, library use, circula-
tion, and holds have been inconsistently defined
across the industry and in other reports. Two, the
digital public library ecosystem is complex, and
dierent elements of the ecosystem do not neces-
sarily work or communicate with each other directly.
Three, availability of books in the digital public library
ecosystem is limited by digital licensing and the
contractual limitations for digital materials.
This report:
Q
Defines terms related to digital library
lending and licensing
Q
Identifies the current players and processes
in the digital public library ecosystem
Rachel Noorda, Ph.D. and Kathi Inman Berens, Ph.D.
Executive Summary
Digital Public Library
Ecosystem 2023
2Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Q
Explains how digital licensing and circula-
tion work
Q
Contextualizes why these matter:
Q Digital book borrowing has increased 34%
since 2019, with a 10% growth “post-
pandemic” between 2021–2022.
2
Q Gen Z and millennials don’t understand
that digital books provided through
services like OverDrive’s Libby app are
connected to their local public library.
3
As the book industry competes in an
increasingly crowded entertainment
marketplace, flexible licensing terms of
digital books reduce patron waits, and
allow libraries to maximize their digital
collections budgets.
4
This
Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023
report
oers a comprehensive overview of the current
state and operations of the Digital Public Library
Ecosystem, including an introduction to the relation-
ships and roles of the many stakeholders: authors,
agents, publishers, distributors, library community,
governments, and trade organizations, as illustrated
in the infographic below (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The digital library ecosystem is complex. Dierent actors in the ecosystem do not necessarily
understand how others outside their sphere operate. This report aims to increase transparency and
communication among the actors.
Digital Public
Library Ecosystem
Publishers
Authors
Platforms
Retailers
Libraries
Libraries
Consortia
Funding & Government
ALA & Other Organizations
LibrariesLibraries
Distributors
Physical
Library
Patron
Digital
Library
Patron
Agents
3Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Introduction
The Digital Public Library Ecosystem is the intercon-
nected network of digital book consumption specif-
ically through public libraries.
5
This
Digital Public
Library Ecosystem 2023
report oers a comprehen-
sive overview of the current state and operations of
the Digital Public Library Ecosystem, including the
relationships and roles of the many stakeholders:
authors, agents, publishers, distributors, library
community, governments and trade organizations.
Knowing the full ecosystem helps foster commu-
nication between stakeholders. It will be easier to
find consensus and identify challenges if people
understand the various actors and their needs in the
system.
This report addresses what previous studies
and other research about the digital public library
ecosystem have lacked. First, this report does not
conflate physical library visits with “library use;”
6
it
validates that digital library use should be factored
into how communities measure libraries’ impact.
Second, this report acknowledges digital reading and
consumption of ebooks and audiobooks is reading
(listening
is
reading).
7
Despite the growing importance of this
ecosystem, it is challenging to comprehend. There
is no singular, comprehensive dataset that could
capture more than a set of snapshots of digital public
library ecosystem activity. The Institute of Museum
and Library Services (IMLS) captures only national
library data, and its data on digital books is limited.
Meanwhile, NPD BookScan does not capture sales
to the library market. This makes proprietary data
from publishers, distributors, or Amazon (which is
both) the only option–but those organizations do
not publicly share data. Individual library systems
have their own data collected in their Integrated
Library Systems (ILS), but ILSs are not constructed
to gather longitudinal borrowing histories due
to library protection of patron data and privacy.
Individual library systems can collate their ILS data
with digital collection use-data from OverDrive (the
most commonly used digital content distributor in
the library sector), but there is no sharing of this
comparative data between library systems. The
specifics are discussed below in the section
Data
Privacy
.
The
Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023
report
redresses the lack of a comprehensive view by
providing an overview of both the nuts-and-bolts of
digital lending and the big picture: how digital collec-
tion licensing terms aect patron access to digital
books; and how mobile computing changes readers’
expectations of access, in-app customization, and
data privacy.
1 DEFINITIONS AND KEY CONCEPTS
To understand the digital public library ecosystem
we must define its components clearly. Too often
dierent actors are not on the same page when
it comes to defining these basic elements, which
makes discussion confusing and ineective.
At a basic level, the heart of the digital public
library ecosystem lies in the licensing of rights from
the author or publisher for the use of the intellectual
property of the ebook or audiobook. Distributors/
aggregators then connect the author and publisher
to the reader, often through libraries. To maximize
their purchasing power and pricing leverage, indi-
vidual libraries often band together in consortia. This
section defines key concepts and terms including
reading, library use,
rights, lending/licensing
models, distributors, and library consortia.
This report
1. Begins by defining key terms and
concepts;
2. Maps central players in the ecosystem;
3. Ends with other important topics
such as collections spending and data
privacy.
4Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Reading
What counts as reading? Format, linearity, and
portion of the book read are often key variables in
the definition of reading. Various companies, organi-
zations, and researchers define reading in dierent
ways. WordsRated researchers define reading as
finishing an entire book and do not count audio-
book listening as reading. In the
Immersive Media
and Books 2020
study sponsored by the Panorama
Project
8
, written by this report’s authors, we used
engaging, rather than reading, to be inclusive of the
many ways that people interact with books: reading
in whole or in part, reading in dierent formats
(print, ebook, audiobook), reading non-linear
non-fiction texts (dictionaries, cookbooks, etc.), and
buying (collecting, displaying, gifting). The narrower
the definition of reading used, the more likely that
ways of interacting with books will be missed.
Library Use
Patron data privacy is important to libraries. For this
reason, libraries and library distributors (like Over-
Drive) do not collect specific identifiable patron
behavior data. While laudable for privacy reasons,
this lack of data inhibits the analysis of the use of
ebooks and audiobooks.
Measuring library use. There are many ways that
library use can be measured, which is problematic
when organizations and researchers are all talking
about library use but not using the same defini-
tion. The only way to capture a holistic picture is
to not define library use with one variable. Number
of library card holders, visits to the physical library
location, and circulation numbers have all been used
as variables to measure library use. For example, the
Freckle Report defines library use as visits to the
physical library location and excludes use of digital
library collections, which misses a large segment of
library use.
Circulations. When a library patron borrows a
book–in the digital public library ecosystem, this
typically means clicking “borrow” on the app–that
is a circulation (circ). A circ/borrow does not
necessarily mean the library patron read/opened the
digital book, only that they checked it out. Renewals
also count as circs. A library patron might initially
borrow the digital book and then renew the book
when the borrowing period expires; this would count
as two circs.
Holds. Hold ratios for digital books dier across
library systems. Hold ratios are determined by the
digital collections librarian on a title-by-title basis,
if the library system has funding to support a sta
position dedicated to managing the digital collection.
Lacking a dedicated sta person, the holds ratios are
likely to stay at a preset ratio the library has deemed
aordable. Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Public Library
has an average wait time of 27 days for digital books,
but the Digital Collections manager customizes hold
ratios on a per-title basis. The prompt for a librarian
to buy another license is triggered when the holds
request exceeds the librarian’s specified “hold ratio”;
librarians can choose to purchase additional licenses
to meet demand, or not. For libraries with fewer
resources, wait times for popular items can be several
weeks or even months. There are often longer waits
for digital formats than for print. At Cuyahoga, the
print hold ratio is 3:1, and twice that (6:1) for an ebook
or audiobook.
5Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Rights
Authors and publishers license the copyright of
ebooks and audiobooks. Authors can decide to sell
rights and to whom; often an author will license
rights to a publisher, who will in turn license rights
to libraries through distributors/aggregators. Not all
publishers or distributors work with libraries, and it is
important that authors understand for which rights
licensing is exclusive. For example, Audible, the
largest distributor in the audiobook space (owning at
least 50%
9
of the market, and more like 90% in some
sectors
10
), typically requires exclusive audiobook
licensing rights from authors and publishers, which
excludes retailers and libraries.
11
Lending/Licensing Models
Unlike in the print public library ecosystem where
copies of each book are
owned
, copies of digital
materials such as ebooks and audiobooks are gener-
ally
licensed
. The dierent licensing models have
access that is either
limited
or
unlimited
in terms
of duration of the license and number of borrowers
or loans allowed. Lending models are also either
simultaneous or not, meaning that one copy can be
loaned to multiple borrowers at the same time or
must be loaned one borrower at a time. OverDrive
built a table summarizing 2023 digital book licensing
terms itemized by publishing company, which they
permitted us to reprint below; see Figure 2 on pages
9–10 of this report. Common lending/licensing
models for library digital content include:
One copy/one user: This lending model requires
one license/copy per library patron that checks
out the book. In other words, just like with a print
book, only one patron can check out the digital
copy at one time. This can quickly become very
expensive for highly borrowed items (if libraries
purchase many digital copies) or may entail long
wait times if there is high demand but a library
cannot aord multiple digital copies.
If, in the one copy/one user model library
access to the digital content does
not
expire after
a given period, the item is perpetually in the
library’s collection.
Metered access: In metered access models, after a
particular number of library circulations/check-
outs
or
a set window of time, a license expires and
must be repurchased/renewed. An early model of
digital library lending was the 2011 HarperCollins
Publishers metered access model which allowed
26 circulations before license expiry.
12
In 2019,
Hachette Book Group implemented a two-year
metered access model to libraries, joining Penguin
Random House and Macmillan Publishers with
similar models.
13
This model can be a useful
option for new books and bestsellers which have
high demand upfront, which tapers over time.
Pay-per-circ: In this model, libraries only pay for
books once they’ve been borrowed by patrons,
and then the library pays for each loan. This can
be economical for titles with low circulation; but
can be very expensive if a title becomes suddenly
in demand. If a library needs an influx of copies
for a new and popular title but doesn’t need them
beyond a short window of popularity, pay-per-
circ can be more eective than getting a one- or
two-year metered license.
Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) lends one digital
copy at a time for each printed copy that’s been
scanned and digitized. The digitized copy, which
is DRM-protected, takes the place of the printed
copy acquired legitimately either through purchase
or donation. CDL’s one-to-one, “owned-to-loan”
ratio is the mechanism by which the Open Library of
the Internet Archive (IA) makes books available. IA
loans about 5% of the volume of books (25 million
in 2021) loaned through OverDrive (500 million in
2021).
14
Some public libraries utilize CDL, as this
list of signatories on the Position Statement on
Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries suggests.
15
However, a large majority of public libraries do not
use CDL.
Whether or not CDL is protected by Fair Use
law was the central issue in the court case brought
against IA by Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins
Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random
House, and coordinated by the Association of Amer-
ican Publishers.
16
On March 24, 2023, Judge John
G. Koetl of the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of New York found in favor of the publishers.
6Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Costs; Embargoes
The type of lending/licensing model available for
a given book depends on the publisher, as well as
distributors/aggregators. Notably, libraries are typi-
cally required to pay 3–4 times the consumer price
for an ebook or audiobook license of a popular title,
even if that license later expires. Some argue that
this price dierence is intended to accommodate
the number of readers that can borrow one ebook or
audiobook (in contrast to one consumer).
17
However,
the prices are high even for the one-copy/one-user
model, which is the closest emulation of a print
circulation. These costs make it very expensive for
libraries to license digital materials.
Finally, beyond stipulating lending/licensing models
and pricing, publishers may institute an embargo—a
gap of time between when the ebook or audiobook is
first available for purchase by consumers and when
it is available to be licensed to libraries. For example,
Macmillan Publishers implemented an eight-week
embargo on digital sales to libraries on November 1,
2019. The embargo was later lifted in conjunction with
Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, on March 17, 2020.
Distribution Partners
and Platforms
Distributors connect publishers and libraries. Some
distributors and partners are more library-friendly
than others. For example, OverDrive and Baker
& Taylor specifically distribute digital content to
libraries and schools, whereas Audible’s contracts
with authors typically exclude libraries. Ebook and
audiobook distribution partners/platforms are some-
times called aggregators as they aggregate digital
content from a variety of publishers/distributors
which can be then purchased by libraries.
Ebook distribution partners or aggregators
that work with libraries include OverDrive, Baker
& Taylor, Smashwords, bibliotheca cloudLibrary,
and PublishDrive. Audiobook distribution partners
to libraries include Axis 360, hoopla, OverDrive,
bibliotheca cloudLibrary, Findaway Voices (now
owned by Spotify), Kobo Writing Life, and Author’s
Republic. Some aggregators not only sell digital
content to libraries, but also facilitate library patrons’
access to that content. For example, distributors sell
books to libraries via distributors/aggregators, most
commonly OverDrive. Libraries purchase licenses
for digital books through a dashboard owned by
the vendor (OverDrive, cloudLibrary, hoopla, etc.).
Following license purchase, the ebook is then distrib-
uted to the library, and made accessible to public
library patrons through a reading app, such as Libby,
hoopla or cloudLibrary.
While the biggest players in the library digital
content distribution space are commercial, there
are some notable nonprofit initiatives. The Digital
Public Library of America (DPLA) makes more
than 47 cultural heritage materials from 5,000
libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural
institutions across the country available via the dp.la
website.
18
In June 2022, DPLA partnered with Lyrasis
and Knight Foundation to launch The Palace Project,
a not-for-profit e-reader app, platform, and market-
place that allows libraries to serve e-content from all
their vendors to patrons via a single app, available for
iOS or Android. DPLA also runs Palace Marketplace,
with an emphasis on providing libraries with flexible
licensing models. Palace Marketplace includes more
than 1.2 million ebook and audiobook titles from all
of the Big 5 publishers, Amazon Publishing, Audible,
hundreds of mid-size and independent publishers,
and independent authors. So far, Palace Marketplace
is the only platform that has negotiated access to
titles from Amazon Publishing and Audible.
19
The
New York Public Library has introduced the Library
Digital Public
Library Ecosystem
Publishers
Authors
Platforms
Retailers
Libraries
Libraries
Consortia
Funding & Government
ALA & Other Organizations
LibrariesLibraries
Distributors
Physical
Library
Patron
Digital
Library
Patron
Agents
7Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Simplified initiative, accessible through its SimplE
app, built on open source software.
20
The Internet
Archive’s Open Library was discussed above in
the context of CDL (Controlled Digital Lending); see
Lending/Licensing Models
, above.
Consortia
Many individual libraries, usually within the same
state, band together to form library consortia,
a collection of libraries who share and centralize
resources, purchasing, etc., including both physical
and digital materials. For small and rural libraries,
consortia models can be even more important
gateways to library access because the administra-
tive costs may be prohibitive and consortia member-
ship can give these library patrons access to a wider
range of resources than otherwise possible. As
almost four out of ten of America’s public libraries
are located in rural communities,
21
consortia are
crucial alliances for rural patrons.
In the digital public library ecosystem, shared
digital books can be prioritized for certain libraries
in the system. These are called
Advantage
copies,
developed by OverDrive in 2009. The library
patrons from the prioritized library/libraries will get
priority for the available copies, helping to ensure
access.
2 MAPPING THE ECOSYSTEM
The digital public library ecosystem involves many
players—including authors and agents, publishers,
distributors and aggregators, libraries, and retailers
which have both common and competing inter-
ests. Therefore, understanding their various roles
and challenges, and how they can work together is
important. While the ecosystem is dominated by large
companies—publishers, distributors, aggregators—
and often prioritizes bestselling authors, there are a
myriad of smaller actors, such as indie authors and
local bookshops, that play a role as well. This section
oers an overview of these groups and their relation-
ship within the digital public library ecosystem.
Authors and Agents
Authors and agents are essential entities in the
digital public library ecosystem. However, commu-
nication from publishers and distributors to authors
and agents regarding digital library sales is opaque.
Digital sales are typically lumped together rather than
broken down into library sales and trade/consumer
sales in royalty statements. While ebook and audio-
book licenses often cost libraries more money than
purchasing a print copy, publishers’ royalty state-
ments often do not break out royalties obtained from
libraries in a way that would show how authors and
agents benefit from the increased price, or whether
the increased licensing fees paid by libraries are
passed along to authors and agents via royalties.
Midlist and Début Authors
Cost is the largest barrier to the provision of digital
library resources in public libraries. The relative
cost of digital books has an impact not only on the
number of titles purchased, but also on the content
of library collections. This prompts concern among
state legislatures about high prices.
22
As Blackwell,
Digital Public
Library Ecosystem
Publishers
Authors
Platforms
Retailers
Libraries
Libraries
Consortia
Funding & Government
ALA & Other Organizations
LibrariesLibraries
Distributors
Physical
Library
patron
Digital
Library
Patron
Agents
8Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Mason, and May ask: “While we might never expect
library digital cost-per-title to be as low as print,
the metered models’ higher title costs suggest that
cost-per-use for digital on average is certainly
higher—likely much higher—than print. . . . Are
current publisher practices squeezing libraries into
a popular-title-only collection model, even when
we might wish to provide and conserve more in
digital?”
23
In other words, if current pricing models tend
to drive libraries to focus primarily on big titles, to
what extent are midlist and début authors losing
out? Already, backlist sales in trade publishing are
the majority of sales, making it harder for debut
authors to break out and find audience. Similarly, the
2020 Immersive Media & Books
data illustrates that
author brand is the #2 preferred way for readers to
discover books. Nearly one quarter (23%) of readers
bought a book specifically because of the author
brand, meaning that those authors who do not yet
have name recognition are at a disadvantage—a
hurdle exacerbated by libraries spending their
limited digital budgets on known authors.
Self-Published Authors
and Library Collections
While self-published (or “indie”) authors have
made inroads in the book market in recent years,
they are even more disadvantaged than traditionally
published debut authors when it comes to standing
out in the digital library landscape. The lack of
marketing around almost all self-published titles
may mean that few ebooks will have sucient reach
to attract a readership beyond people the author
personally knows. In this context, how can libraries
and local/indie authors work together to break down
barriers to digital access?
Initiatives to invite local, self-published writers
into locally-curated digital collections, such as
the Indie Authors Project and the Multnomah
County (OR) Library (MCL) Writers Project, may
be one answer. Projects like these have potential
to strengthen connections between local libraries
and local writer communities. Libraries can help the
writers reach readers. And the writers, in turn, can
draw the community into library spaces by hosting
readings and other events at the library.
The Library Writers
Project team at MCL,
for example, has
curated a collection of
self-published works
on OverDrive by local
authors.
24
At the time
of this writing, the
collection has 125 titles
across genres. Authors
must publish their works
on Smashwords, Kobo
Writing Life, or Draft-
2Digital (all services that
are available for free)
and fill out a submission form, including their library
card number. Each book is reviewed independently by
two library sta members with a wide range of reading
interests. After library sta review submissions, the
best ones are added to the library’s ebook collection
on the OverDrive platform, which the MCL website
notes is “visited by over 8,000 MCL patrons every
single day.”
25
Meanwhile, eighteen states and prov-
inces across the U.S. and Canada participate in the
Indie Authors Project, indicating significant poten-
tial reach.
26
Inclusion in the Indie Authors Project is
recognition from libraries that “creates credibility and
visibility for indie authors in a growing marketplace of
digital content and indie-published books.”
27
Publishers
Trade publishing in the United States is highly
consolidated, which impacts libraries and digital book
lending. The largest 5 trade publishers (called the Big
5) are Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster,
HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, and
Hachette Book Group. The trade book sales of these
5 publishers accounts for approximately 60% of the
overall market.
28
In 2021, Big 5 titles accounted for 91%
of bestselling adult hardcover sales and 77.4% of best-
selling adult paperback sales.
29
Since the Big 5 control
so much of the trade book market, the terms they set
for digital library loans impact a wide swath of books
(see Figure 2). Based on data from OverDrive, the
Big 5 oer digital material licensing terms to libraries,
as depicted in Figure 2, as of July 2023.
9Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Library Access to Ebooks and Audiobooks (as of July 2023)
Model Descripon Expiraon Examples
One-Copy/One-
User (OCOU)
Libraries or
schools purchase
one unit at a
time to serve one
patron or student
at a time (like
physical loan)
None More than 3 million titles from thousands of publishers
Metered Access
OCOU
Same as OCOU
with term limits
Title must be
repurchased after “term
limit” based on time
(e.g., 24 months) or
checkouts (e.g., 52)
See table below
Class Set EDU &
Academic—
access limited by
single assignment
and time limit
(typically 90 days)
Varies, typically 90 days Thousands of titles key to learning success in K12 and
College/University. Includes catalogs from:
Q
Penguin Random House
Q
HarperCollins
Q
Hachette
Q
Macmillan
Q
Simon & Schuster
Q
Lerner
Q
Rosen
Q
Blackstone
Q
Scholastic
Q
Capstone
Q
RBmedia
On Demand Models
Metered Access
Concurrent Use
(MACU) (a.k.a.
OverDrive Max)
Bundles of loans
(often 100) that
can be used
concurrently
None
Q
RBmedia
Q
Open Road Media
Q
Lerner publishing
Q
Blackstone Audiobooks
Q
Dreamscape Media
Q
IPG (Independent Publishers Group)
Q
Planeta
Q
Springer
Simultaneous Use Concurrent use
for single title
or collection for
specific period
(typically 1 year)
Varies, typically 1 year
for title collections and
1 or more months for
single titles
Q
All Access Comics
Q
OverDrive Magazines
Blackstone Audiobooks
Q
Lerner Publishing
Q
Britannica Digital Learning
Q
getAbstract
Q
IPG
Q
Lonely Planet
Q
Open Road Media
Cost-per-checkout Library or school
incurs a charge
for every loan.
Limited to one
patron at a time
None
Q
Penguin Random House
Q
HarperCollins
Q
Simon & Schuster
Q
Kobo Writing Life
Q
Chronicle Books
Q
Kensington
Q
Sourcebooks
Q
Harlequin
Q
W.W. Norton
Figure 2. Library Access to Ebooks and Audiobooks (continued on following page)
10Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Big 5 Publishers (U.S. divisions) Access Models for Public Libraries (as of July 2023)
Publisher Ebook Audiobook
Purchase Model(s) Lending
Model
Purchase Model(s) Lending
Model
Hachette
Book Group
Metered Access: Two-year term. One-Copy/
One-User
Metered Access: Two-year term. One-Copy/
One-User
HarperCollins Metered Access: 26 circulations per
purchase.
AND
(therefore, some titles have multiple
options)
Cost-per-Circ
Q
Each circulation is paid for separately by
the library.
Q
Select catalog
OverDrive MAX (pilot Apr – Oct 2023)
Q
Bundle of 100 circulations
Q
Circulation can be concurrent
Q
Select catalog
Curriculum
Q
Supports Class Set sales with individual
student assignment of titles.
One-Copy/
One-User
Standard purchase, no term or
circulation limits.
AND
(therefore, some titles have multiple
options)
Cost-per-Circ
Q
Each circulation is paid for sepa-
rately by the library.
Q
Select catalog, generally backlist.
One-Copy/
One-User
Macmillan Metered Access: Two-year term.
Curriculum
Q
Supports Class Set sales with individual
student assignment of titles.
One-Copy/
One-User
Standard purchase, no term or
circulation limits.
One-Copy/
One-User
Penguin
Random House
Metered Access: Two-year term.
Also supporting
Q
Metered Access: One-year term.
Q
Cost-per-Circ
Q
Curriculum
Q
Supports Class Set sales with individual
student assignment of titles.
One-Copy/
One-User
Standard purchase, no term or
circulation limits.
Also supporting
Q
Metered Access: One-year term.
Q
Cost-per-Circ
One-Copy/
One-User
Simon &
Schuster
Metered Access: Two-year term.
AND
(therefore, some titles have multiple
options)
Cost-per-Circ
Q
Each circulation is paid for separately by
the library.
Q
Select catalog, generally backlist.
Curriculum
Q
Supports Class Set sales with individual
student assignment of titles.
One-Copy/
One-User
Metered Access: Two-year term.
AND
(therefore, some titles have multiple
options)
Cost-per-Circ
Q
Each circulation is paid for sepa-
rately by the library.
Q
Select catalog, generally backlist.
One-Copy/
One-User
In addition to the models noted above
Q
Under the One-Copy/One-User lending model, circulation is limited to one patron at a time for each unit of a title the library has purchased.
Q
HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, and Penguin Random House also support special sales to libraries who have selected their titles for book
clubs and community reading initiatives.
Figure 2. Library Access to Ebooks and Audiobooks (continued)
11Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
HarperCollins and Penguin Random House
oer the most licensing flexibility to libraries, while
Hachette and Macmillan oer the least. Library
access to audiobooks is influenced by whether or not
Amazon’s Audible, which holds up to 90% market
share for trade audiobooks, has exclusive rights to
distribute a particular title. More on this below in the
section “Retailers.”
Notably, the ultimate control of U.S. book
publishing is not centralized in New York as one might
assume, but in Europe. Due to the multimedia and
multinational conglomeration of the U.S. publishing
industry starting in the 1960s, 3 of the 5 largest trade
U.S. publishers are owned by companies outside of
the country. Penguin Random House is owned by
German Bertelsmann, Hachette Book Group is owned
by French Lagardère Group, and Macmillan Publishers
is owned by German Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
Distributors/Platforms
Surging Demand; OverDrive
Is the Dominant Player
Increased demand for digital book materials during
COVID lockdowns has not just been sustained, but
surpassed post-lockdowns. From 2019 to 2020,
OverDrive saw 33% growth for digital book lending,
with an increase from 366 million to 430 million
loans
30
, and another jump to 500 million in 2021.
31
Marshall Breeding, a library technology consultant,
notes that “other players in the sector—such as
bibliotheca cloudLibrary, ODILO, Baker & Taylor’s
Axis 360, and hoopla—represent ‘significant’
competition.”
32
But for library systems that can’t
aord to oer more than one digital platform to
patrons, the extent to which the rivals present a
“significant” challenge to OverDrive is unclear.
OverDrive is the largest commercial provider of
ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital content such
as streaming movies (via Kanopy) to public libraries
in North America. The for-profit media company
is owned by the investment firm KKR, and had a
market value estimated at $775 million in 2019.
Around 17,000 public libraries subscribe to Over-
Drive’s content-lending platform, as do 55,000 K-12
school libraries, representing a market share perhaps
upwards of 90% for both library types. bibliotheca
oers technology solutions globally with 30,000
library customers around the world. hoopla pioneered
the pay-per-use model in 2013, which OverDrive then
adopted as an option for libraries. hoopla has also
adopted the standard one copy/one user model. For
hoopla’s pay-per-use approach, libraries can oer a
collection (currently 1.2 million titles) to their patrons.
The full collection, or the collection as customized by
a library, is available to patrons with no waiting. The
library only pays when a patron completes a loan.
OverDrive’s practices, tools, and policies are
what the majority of librarians and library patrons
experience when it comes to ebooks and audio-
books. Readers access digital collections via apps,
which have been curated by their local librarians
or consortia through the distributor’s dashboard.
OverDrive is the only library platform that provides
in-app support for reading via Amazon’s Kindle app
or on the Kindle ereader device, a dierentiator for
some librarians seeking to provide loaned ebooks on
patrons’ preferred reading apps.
Privacy Implications of Kindle
Integration with Libby
What the Kindle integration into OverDrive’s Libby
app means for the sharing of library patron data is
unknown. OverDrive “sends minimal, anonymized
information to the third party service so they can
Digital Public
Library Ecosystem
Publishers
Authors
Platforms
Retailers
Libraries
Libraries
Consortia
Funding & Government
ALA & Other Organizations
LibrariesLibraries
Distributors
Physical
Library
Patron
Digital
Library
Patron
Agents
12Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
authorize you as a valid library patron. You may
be required by the third party service to create an
account. Any information you submit to the third
party is not shared with OverDrive.”
33
If library
patrons are reading ebooks borrowed through Libby
on their Kindle apps, then Amazon—a third party
to OverDrive’s policies—is likely to have access
to the patron’s Kindle-specific borrowing history
and book completion data. OverDrive’s published
privacy policies indicate that it does not control
what Amazon does that this
information; though there
could be an agreement
between OverDrive and
Amazon about Libby users’
data privacy that is beyond
the scope of this report’s
review of publicly available
information. While several
third parties are named in
OverDrive’s privacy policies,
such as Google Analytics,
Salesforce, Alchemer and
OnceHub, Amazon is not.
Presumably, patrons who
opt to read Libby-loaned
books via Kindle are already
Amazon customers. But
when patrons opt-in to
connecting their Libby app
with Kindle in Libby’s prefer-
ences, they may not realize
they are also opting into
sharing their Kindle-spe-
cific library use data with Amazon. OverDrive
enables readers to use third party service providers
like Amazon via Libby.
34
Reader completion data is
valuable to publishers, and it’s usually inaccessible,
locked away in proprietary ereader apps such as
Kindle, Nook and iBooks. OverDrive has a mandate
to maintain the privacy of patrons’ data, but Amazon
does not have such a mandate. OverDrive’s privacy
policies list a number of valuable safeguards to keep
patron data private, such as encrypted transfer of
information via SSL, employee access to person-
ally-identifiable information limited to those who
require it to perform their job activities, and fire-
walls to prevent authorized disclosures. However,
Amazon’s mandate is dierent than OverDrive’s. It
is unclear how library-guaranteed privacy protec-
tions fare when patrons use Kindle to read books
borrowed through Libby.
35
Competition and Innovation
Improve App User Experience
The 2010s were an important era of growth and
innovation in the digital library space during which
OverDrive’s market inno-
vations were sharpened by
challenges from cloudlibrary,
Axis 360, and to a lesser
extent, New York Public
Library’s then-nascent
SimpleE app.
In 2014, cloudLibrary
strengthened its oering by
developing cloudLink, and
this remains its preeminent
product. cloudLink facilitates
digital title sharing among
participating libraries and
helps libraries bolster the
breadth and depth of their
digital collections, a long-
standing challenge given the
high prices of digital licenses.
In 2016, two California library
systems (Huntington Beach
and San Diego) linked their
digital collections using
cloudLink, increasing circula-
tion by 83% for those libraries.
Libby (public libraries) and Sora (school
libraries) have helped to significantly simplify and
streamline the digital loan process. As ebooks
became easier to access, librarians began more
frequently recommending digital book formats.
“I went from sta telling me that they actively
discourage people from checking out eBooks
to branch librarians telling us they recommend
Libby to patrons daily,” said the digital collec-
tions manager at Cuyahoga County Public Library
(CCPL). “[They now recommend digital books
to] everyone from elementary kids to adults who
need audio or the large print a Kindle or iPad can
provide.”
Demand for digital collections
grew 33% between 2019–2020.
Digital is the fastest-growing
sector of library borrowing.
13Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Patron Confusion that Libby Is
Paid for by Their Local Library
Many digital patrons do not understand that Libby is
a virtual branch of their local public library.
For Gen Z and millennials especially, the
messaging and awareness disconnect between the
digital book app and a patron’s local public library is
particularly apparent. According to data from
Gen Z
and Millennials: How They Use Public Libraries and
Identify Through Media Use
, just 37% of physical
library users aged 13–40 said they’d borrowed books
from digital collections.
36
That number plummets to
17% for those who hadn’t visited a library. However,
usage data from OverDrive shows that digital collec-
tion borrowing is surging, and there is some evidence
that millennials are borrowing the most ebooks and
audiobooks of any demographic, according to CCPL
digital circulation data.
OverDrive’s apps have a strong overall positive
impact on library patron access to digital books.
But patrons may not be sure who or what “Libby”
is, and may not understand that Libby provides
access to the digital collections of one’s local public
library. Though local library or consortia names and
logos appear in Libby’s in-app branding, there are
no external links leading to the local library system’s
website. This lack of connec-
tion between the Libby app
and the local, physical library
can confuse patrons. They
may not understand that their
tax support for local libraries
also pays for access to digital
collections. This goes back to
a theme of this report, namely
that the public needs to
understand that digital library
services are one part of local
library services.
In states where digital book
access is paid for by consortia
rather than individual library
systems, it can be even harder for patrons to under-
stand that taxed support for local libraries buys access
to digital collections through Libby. For example, in
Oregon the branding on the Libby app’s mobile home-
page lists “Oregon Digital Library Consortium” and
makes no mention of the local library systems that
fund access. Options for digital shelf talkers (librarian
book recommendations) and other customization
features are available to digital collections managers,
but not all libraries have sucient funds to pay a
designated digital collections sta member to take
full advantage of the curation possibilities to create a
successful, integrated library experience. Therefore, it
is not surprising that patrons may not understand that
using the digital book app is “visiting” a locally funded
library resource.
Libraries and
Subscription Services
Content Owned by Private
Subscription Services Can’t
Be Accessed by Libraries
Though this report focuses on digital books, we
include an introductory characterization of the chal-
lenges presented by digital, proprietary subscription
services, which are formidable. Many of the most
popular subscription services and their content
are inaccessible to libraries unless those products
are available in physical
formats such as DVD.
These include: Webtoon;
Amazon’s Kindle Unlim-
ited, Prime Video, and
Audible; Spotify; Netflix;
Hulu; Substack; Disney+;
HBO Max; Apple+; and
Paramount+. These are
just a few of the subscrip-
tion-only digital media
content providers that
don’t license content to
libraries at any price (see
below, “Retailers”).
Streaming became a
high-quality mobile viewing experience when low-la-
tency HLS [HTTP live streaming]
37
greatly reduced
lag time and buering starting in June 2019. In the
past, libraries would eventually gain access to films
and music when DVDs and CDs were oered for
sale to the general public. This is less likely now that
Usage data from OverDrive shows
that digital collection borrowing
is surging, and that millennials are
borrowing the most ebooks and
audiobooks of any demographic.
14Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
many shows and songs are never released in physical
formats. Lack of library access to new content exclu-
sive to subscription services may become bother-
some, particularly as Gen Z and millennials age. Data
from
Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use Public
Libraries and Identify Through Media Use
show that
people of those generations look first to digital apps
on their mobile devices to discover new content.
Perhaps most urgently, as noted earlier, Audi-
ble-exclusive titles are mostly not available to librar-
ies.
38
Amazon licenses a smattering of its Originals to
the approximately 400 libraries that use the Palace
Marketplace Exchange.
39
This is problematic, given
that Audible (a subscription service) commands
at least 50%
40
and in some sectors as much as 90%
of the digital audiobook market.
41
In other words,
despite significant audiobook market growth over
the last 10 years, a large portion of audiobook titles
cannot be licensed to libraries and aren’t available
to readers there. Authors aren’t always aware that
Audible-exclusive audiobook deals exclude libraries.
Library-Friendly
Subscription Services
While some subscription services exclude libraries,
others welcome them. For example, many libraries
use aggregator services such as Libby, Axis-360,
cloudLibrary, Flipster, and Rivistas to provide patrons
simultaneous-use licenses to access digital maga-
zines. Other services, such as hoopla’s Binge Pass,
give library patrons seven-day access to bundles of
unlimited content with one borrow. hoopla’s Curi-
osity Binge Pass, for example, oers curated non-fic-
tion and documentary video content, while the Binge
Pass oers educational content for 2–8-year-olds.
Libraries also make use of Comics Plus, a Library-
Pass database of new and backlist comics, graphic
novels, and manga. The platform makes new content
available every Wednesday, following the comics
industry standard practice. In the first half of 2022,
Comics Plus logged nearly 500,000 downloads
“through more than 2,000 schools and libraries in
the US and around the world.”
42
Its publisher part-
ners oers simultaneous use licenses, which means
it can meet unlimited demand with no wait times.
The ability to provide instant access to digital mate-
rials is a key dierentiator for Comics Plus. Instant
access establishes credibility for Comics Plus among
Gen Z patrons using school libraries and who are
accustomed to Amazon’s Comixology or apps like
MangaFox, Webtoon, and CrunchyRoll, subscription
services that provide access to manga and anime.
OverDrive oers All Access Comics including
Marvel, Disney, Dark Horse and others.
43
With the growing demand and use of digital
collections, Gen Z and millennials read more on their
phones than older generations, how well libraries
serve digital collections to them will inevitably be
compared to other, non-library reading apps like
Webtoon or Wattpad. Long wait times associ-
ated with ebooks and audio can deter Gen Z from
borrowing materials, and this may have a long-term
impact of causing them to disengage from libraries,
or never give them a try. Graphic fiction/nonfiction
and manga are high-growth categories for these age
groups. More than half (59%) of Gen Z and millen-
nials would choose the graphical version of a story
over the text-only version.
44
Retailers
The
Immersive Media and Books 2020
study showed
that book discovery is largely format- and plat-
form-agnostic: people find books in one space and
buy or borrow in another. It’s entirely possible that
patrons borrowing books from digital collections
would be incentivized to visit their local library for an
15Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
author event coupled with a book signing; likewise,
library patrons may discover a new book or author
via an in-person author event or a librarian’s recom-
mendation and go on to borrow or buy the ebook or
audiobook.
Libraries often work directly with retailers, such as
local independent bookstores, for author events held
in the public library building. The 2019 Public Library
Events and Book Sales Study from the Panorama
Project revealed the following about library part-
nerships with bookstores for author events at the
library:
Q
89.5% of libraries sell books at events
Q
42.4% of libraries typically partner with
booksellers to engage authors for events
Q
61.2% of libraries said the bookstore partner
handles the sale of books during the library
event
Q
52.9% of libraries acquire the books that
they sell at events through their local book-
stores.
45
The Center for the Book at the Library of
Congress maintains a list of “One Book Projects”
in which libraries lead members of a community (a
city, a region, a library system) in reading the same
book, and facilitating author events, conversations,
and other kinds of programming around that book.
46
There are hundreds of such events across the U.S.
each year. But how to take the measure of the role
played by specifically
digital
library books in such
events?
When George Floyd was murdered on May 25,
2020, many libraries quickly provided free, unlim-
ited ebook and audiobook access to antiracism
titles, donated
by OverDrive.
Because the
nation was
still in lock-
down, patron
borrowing of
ebook and
audiobook
formats was the
simplest and
fastest to access. Pervasive public library access
across the U.S. didn’t dampen sales. “Sales of top
books about race increased by up to 6,800% in
the aftermath of George Floyd’s death,” reported
Jemima McEvoy of
Forbes
, citing data from NPD
BookScan.
47
“Ibram X. Kendi’s
Stamped From the
Beginning
and Ijeoma Oluo’s
So You Want to Talk
About Race
both sold around 3,000 copies over the
two-month period from March to April 2020, and
then 139,928 and 191,262, respectively, from May to
June (percentage increases of 3926% and 6895%).”
This is a variant on a “One Book” project, responding
to emergent and urgent social conditions. Library
digital book access worked in tandem with retail
book sales.
Digital Public
Library Ecosystem
Publishers
Authors
Platform
Retailers
Libraries
Libraries
Consortia
Funding & Government
ALA & Chapters: Advocating
LibrariesLibraries
Distributors
Physical
Library
Patron
Digital
Library
Patron
Agents
Library access across the
U.S. didn’t dampen sales.
Sales of top books about
race increased by up to
6,800% in the aftermath
of George Floyd’s death.
16Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
3 HOW DIGITAL COLLECTIONS WORK
In the preceding two sections we have discussed
key terms and key players in the digital public library
ecosystem. But, how do digital loans work in prac-
tice? And what related challenges, barriers, and
opportunities exist for libraries?
Digital Holds, Circs,
and Reads
At the most basic level, the digital public library
ecosystem is driven by library circulation of digital
materials. For some licensing models, circulations
also determine how fast the license expires or how
much the library is charged.
With OverDrive a digital circulation is counted
against a library’s account when a patron borrows a
book. If a patron places a digital book on hold, it is not
counted against the library’s account until borrowed.
Both digital loan periods and hold periods are set by
the library. If a patron has had a digital book on hold,
then once that book becomes available, the patron
is given 72 hours to borrow the book, suspend the
hold, or cancel the hold. Library patrons can choose
the length of a hold suspension (anywhere from 1 to
180 days) and once that time has passed, the hold
resumes. If library patrons do nothing during the
72-hour hold period, then the hold is automatically
suspended for 7 days. After those 7 days, the library
patron gets another 72 hours to choose whether to
borrow the book or cancel the hold. This is called
automatic hold redelivery.
Once a digital book is borrowed, libraries (using
metered access or pay-per-circ) are charged for the
digital circulation regardless of whether the patron
reads the book. Libraries do not have data about what
patrons do with digital books and do not know if a
particular book was read/listened to or how much was
read/listened to.
48
It is unclear whether distributors
like OverDrive collect such data. In contrast, one
of Amazon’s great competitive advantages (though
not great for protecting individual privacy) in the
publishing industry is its collection of data, not only
about sales but also about digital reading behavior.
Library Control Over
Collections and Licensing
As mentioned above, most librarians control their
library’s collection and spending through the distrib-
utor’s marketplace dashboard, selecting the lending
model on a per-title basis. Again, libraries with more
resources might have a dedicated sta member who
manages digital collections. Such positions can reduce
overall spending because the manager can adjust the
lending model to reflect actual patron demand rather
than anticipated patron demand. Such calibrations are
made not just by monitoring the holds ratio (holds:-
copies), but by tracking how many of those holds are
borrowed after they become available to the patron.
New releases might be highly in-demand for
the first year after release, but demand often drops
significantly after that initial surge has been fulfilled.
In such cases, the flexibility of licensing terms
makes ebooks and audiobooks more advantageous
than print; but fulfillment can be expensive. A CPC
(cost-per-circ) model is good for meeting big initial
demand because holds can be filled simultaneously
and instantly; but such licenses are expensive, and
many libraries lack budget for such an expenditure.
After clearing the holds queue, a dierent licensing
model might be more appropriate, such as a 12- or
24-month period of metered access for the far fewer
copies now needed.
As noted earlier, publishers’ flexibility on
licensing terms is not standardized. The range of
licensing options varies by publishing house. While
publishers with less flexibility do not necessarily
earn less money–depending on the popularity of
17Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
their titles–less flexible licensing terms (metered
v. CPC) create conditions where librarians need to
make harder choices. This can include weighing the
likelihood of longer hold times and patron frustra-
tion against spending too much on one title and
having fewer funds to license a broader range of
materials.
This is why expensive digital licensing disad-
vantages midlist authors: librarians are less likely
to aord the digital version of a midlist title if the
budget is gobbled up by high-visibility authors such
as Stephen King or Emily Henry.
Increased Digital Collection
Spend and Higher Digital
License Costs
With the increased demand from readers for digital
materials, libraries are spending more on digital. The
cost dierence between digital licenses and print
materials limits how much libraries can meet these
needs, even with larger digital materials budgets.
According to a
Library Journal
survey of library
spending, materials budgets were up 1.3% on average
for libraries in 2021, with an estimated 27% of
materials spending going to digital content. Digital
materials spending was even higher for suburban
and urban libraries at 30%.
49
Since libraries pay
on average 3 times the consumer price for ebooks
and audiobooks, the price tag of increased digital
spending adds up quickly.
50
These circumstances pose challenges for libraries.
In the
New Yorker
article, “The Surprisingly Big
Business of Library E-Books,” a Denver public library
director observes: “Digital content gives publishers
more power over prices, because it allows them
to treat libraries dierently than they treat other
kinds of buyers. Last year, the Denver Public Library
increased its digital checkouts by more than sixty
per cent, to 2.3 million, and spent about a third of its
collections budget on digital content, up from twenty
per cent the year before.”
51
Meanwhile, at Cuyahoga
County Public Library, digital now accounts for 33%
of total collection spend, serving the 12% of card-
holders who use OverDrive services. These readers
are voracious, checking out proportionally more
books than patrons who are print-only.
Data Privacy
Libraries are data privacy shrines, but the general
public and even library patrons are not always
aware of how fiercely libraries both avoid collecting
unnecessary data and protect the data that they
do collect. Libraries’ commitment to data privacy is
valuable and unusual when compared to big media
companies’ use of leverage to collect all the data
they can. Despite the many benefits of library data
privacy, this practice does limit app customization
and collection eorts to a degree.
Librarians, as a bedrock principle, do not collect
personally-identifiable borrowing histories. While
it’s possible that patron data collected and owned
by libraries (such as patron names, addresses, and
the like) could in theory be correlated to digital
collection use via the patron’s library card number,
such data profiling would not be consistent with
library’s protection of reader privacy. Libraries
have instructed OverDrive to not collect user
data tagged to patrons’ card numbers. On its end,
OverDrive has a user privacy customization tool,
where patrons can request that one’s personally
identifiable information (PII) be removed from
OverDrive’s systems. This process doesn’t aect
the status of one’s library card.
Librarians who manage digital collections through
the OverDrive Marketplace have instantaneous
access to real-time checkouts, holds, and unique
users but not to personally-identifiable informa-
tion. This, and other features of the interface, gives
librarians curatorial enrichments of the library user
experience. For example, librarians can curate digital
collections that correspond with initiatives of the
physical library. They can also curate collections
that relate to digital phenomena, such as “Popular
on Tik-Tok.” Patrons, in turn, can customize in Libby
what they see in the digital collection by using filters
and tags.
The tradeo between privacy and customization
that people make in all of their apps is true with
library apps, too. Reader privacy as a library core
value is currently not well communicated to patrons.
On-site librarians report receiving requests from
patrons to “look up my borrow history.”
Even if there were a shift in library ethos to permit
data collection that patrons could opt into, such
18Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
work would be labor-intensive. It would require the
collation of datasets from OverDrive (or another
digital distributor) and the local library’s ILS. Most
libraries are barely able to fund their existing
services, let alone a novel layer of data informatics.
As an alternative, snapshots of depersonalized
user data could guide or inform digital collection
development. For example, super-users are easily
identified by the volume of their checkouts. Their
preferences can be examined in isolation (“what do
super-consumers borrow?”) or they can be removed
from a dataset, giving a more accurate picture of
the behavior of average borrowers who consume 1-3
digital books/month.
More research needs to be done around attitudes
toward data privacy, and demand for customization
features, to learn whether generational dierences
aect the perception of data privacy as a core value.
Undeniably, digital collections are the fast-
est-growing sector of library borrowing. Librarians
are well-positioned to think through the unique
value of libraries’ digital collections as a space free
from surveillance compared to the commercial. How
important is it to people that they can seek infor-
mation on library computers and not have those
searches part of their personally-identifiable search
history? Intellectual freedom is a foundational library
value.
CONCLUSION AND FURTHER RESEARCH
People’s use of public libraries’ digital collections
has surged in recent years. Accelerated by COVID
lockdowns, use of digital collections continues to
grow and will likely persist as a behavioral change.
As such, the need for stakeholders to comprehend
the digital public library ecosystem–to understand
each others’ needs, and come to consensus–has
never been more urgent. Commercial entertainment
subscription services are competing for peoples’
attention; and they make original content that
libraries often cannot
license. The more
habituated people
become to consuming
“content” on their
phones, the more
urgent it is for libraries
to oer a compelling
experience: simple
access, short hold
durations, and the
freedom to sample
books and other
media robustly.
The digital public
library ecosystem is
complex, and this
report has mapped
the major actors,
defined key terms, and provided context for under-
standing how digital collections get books from
publishers into readers’ hands.
Beyond this descriptive report, there is research
to be done:
Q
Do libraries cannibalize book sales? Boost
sales with free marketing in every commu-
nity in the U.S.? Have a net-neutral eect?
If libraries and publishers were to collabo-
rate in sharing circ and sales data for a select
number of titles, the community could
discern the financial impact of digital library
book circulation on publishers’ bottom line.
Q
To what extent do authors and agents know
about library sales and circulation for their
own titles?
Q
To what extent do people realize that Libby
is their public library—and what are the
most eective strategies to increase this
understanding?
Libraries, publishers, distributors, authors, agents,
book retailers: all are aligned in helping this 500-year
old medium, the book, continue to exert its spell
on readers. This report aims to make the quickly
morphing digital public library ecosystem comprehen-
sible. Next steps should be taken to assure libraries’
continued vitality for the increasingly digital reading
public.
Digital library
stakeholders must
understand each
other and come
to consensus as
digital collection use
continues to surge.
19Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Alan Inouye, Interim Asso-
ciate Executive Director of Public Policy & Advocacy
at the American Library Association, for convening
conversation about the future of libraries in a 2022
roundtable in Washington D.C. The roundtable
included former ALA President Sari Feldman, Brian
O’Leary (Executive Director of the Book Industry
Study Group), and Larra Clark (Deputy Director of
ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Oce & Public
Library Association), to all of whom we tender our
thanks. From this conversation, important questions
were raised that this report answers.
We are grateful to the leadership team at
Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library for providing
us with a close look at their digital collection
management, cost-per-circ data, and how these
things compare to print collections. Particular thanks
to (in alphabetical order) Daniel Barden, Kaitlin
Booth, Pamela Jankowski, and Hallie Rich for sharing
their expertise.
Finally, we thank OverDrive for extensive advice
and information used throughout this report.
About the Authors
Dr. Rachel Noorda is Director of Book Publishing
and Associate Professor in English at Portland State
University. She researches twenty-first century
book topics such as entrepreneurship, marketing,
small business, national identity, and international
publishing. She is the author of
Entrepreneurial
Identity in U.S. Book Publishing in the Twenty-First
Century
(Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Dr. Kathi Inman Berens is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar
of digital culture, former Annenberg Innovation
Lab Fellow, prize-winning author, and Associate
Professor of Book Publishing and Digital Humanities
at Portland State University. She is co-editor
of the
Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4.
Her current research is about how artificial intelli-
gence influences literary production.
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Endnotes
1. Faverio and Perrin, “Three-in-Ten Americans Now Read
e-Books,” January 6, 2022, pewresearch.org/fact-tank/
2022/01/06/three-in-ten-americans-now-read-e-books.
2. See section on Distributors/ OverDrive below.
3. See “Patron Confusion About Who Pays for Libby Access”
below. There is a discrepancy between the percentage of
Gen Z and millennials
reporting
digital library use (low) and
actually using
digital library resources (high). The researchers
of this report hypothesize that the discrepancy may lie in a
branding disconnect in the minds of younger library patrons,
who do not self-report digital library use because they do not
realize that that Libby is their local library.
4. See “Digital Collections” section below.
5. The focus of this report is on public libraries rather than
academic, school, or special libraries.
6. Matthews, “The Freckle Report,” 2022.
7. WordsRated, “American Reading Habits Study,” 2022,
wordsrated.com/american-reading-habits-study.
8. Noorda and Inman Berens, “Immersive Media and Books
2020,” March 5, 2021, panoramaproject.org/immersive
-media-reading-2020.
9. McIllroy, “AI Comes to Audiobooks,” October 29, 2021,
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/
publisher-news/article/87762-ai-comes-to-audiobooks
.html.
10. Doctorow, “We Need to Talk About Audible,” 2020,
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/
article/84384-we-need-to-talk-about-audible.html.
11. Pearson, “The Harmful Impact of Audible Exclusive Audio-
books,” 2020, blog.libro.fm/the-harmful-impact-of-audible
-exclusive-audiobooks.
12. Reid, “Librarian Unhappiness Over New Harper e-Book
Lending Policy Grows”, March 2, 2011, publishersweekly.com/
pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/46333
-librarian-unhappiness-over-new-harper-e-book-lending
-policy-grows.html.
13. Authors Guild, “A New Twist in Ebook Library Licensing Fees,”
June 21, 2019, authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/a-new
-twist-in-ebook-library-licensing-fees.
14. Quoted in Friedman, “The Hot Sheet,” July 20, 2022.
15. Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries. 2022. controlled
digitallending.org/signatories.
16. Andrew Albanese, “Internet Archive Seeking AAP,
Publisher Communications in Scanning Lawsuit,” October 31,
2021, publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/
libraries/article/87773-internet-archive-seeking-aap
-publisher-communcations-in-book-scanning-lawsuit.html.
17. Authors Guild, “Ebook Library Pricing,” September 17, 2019,
authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/e-book-library-pricing
-the-game-changes-again.
18. dp.la/about.
19. Provided in email communication with DPLA in May 2023.
20. librarysimplified.org.
21. “Rural Libraries in America,” Institute of Museum and Library
Services, imls.gov/sites/default/files/publications/
documents/rurallibrariesinamericainfographic
overview.pdf
22. See Albanese, “Maryland Library Ebook Law,”
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/
article/89598-in-final-order-court-declares-maryland
-s-library-e-book-law-unconstitutional.html.
23. Blackwell, Mason, and May, “EBook Availability, Pricing, and
Licensing: A Study of Three Vendors in the U.S. and Canada,”
2019, infotoday.com/cilmag/nov19/Blackwell-Mason-May
--Ebook%20Availability-Pricing-and-Licensing.shtml.
24. multcolib.overdrive.com/collection/36343.
25. multcolib.org/library-writers-project.
26. Alberta, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois,
Louisiana, Nevada, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North
Carolina, Ohio, Ontario, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia.
27. indieauthorproject.librariesshare.com/iap.
28. Dimitrije Curcic, “The Big Five Publishers Statistics,”
WordsRated, Nov 17, 2022. wordsrated.com/
the-big-five-publishers-statistics.
29. Liz Hartman, “Breaking Down 2021’s Bestsellers by Publisher,”
Publishers Weekly
, January 14, 2022, publishersweekly.com/
pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/88301
-breaking-down-2021-s-bestsellers-by-publisher.html.
30. OverDrive, “33% Growth for Digital Books from Public
Libraries and Schools in 2020 Sets Records,” January 7, 2021,
company.overdrive.com/2021/01/07/33-growth-for-digital
-books-from-public-libraries-and-schools-in-2020-sets
-records.
31. Reported in Friedman, “The Hot Sheet,” July 20, 2022.
32. Marshall Breeding, “OverDrive’s New Owners: What It
Means,”
American Libraries,
December 31, 2019, american
librariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/overdrives-new
-owners-what-means.
33. OverDrive privacy policy: company.cdn.overdrive
.com/policies/privacy-policy.htm?. Accessed February 13,
2023.
34. Common Sense Media, “Libby, by OverDrive.” privacy
.commonsense.org/evaluation/Libby-by-OverDrive.
Accessed February 13, 2023. Common Sense Media audits
media companies by reviewing companies’ publicly available
privacy policies and scoring them on a range of indicators,
each evaluated with a percentage score of compliance with
best privacy practices.
35. OverDrive’s security statement as of July 2023. It does not
mention Amazon or Kindle: company.cdn.overdrive.com/
policies/security-statement.
36. Berens and Noorda, “Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use
Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use.” American
Library Association. September 2023.
37. Innovations in low latency enabled HTTP live streaming to
have faster load times and less buering. developer.apple
.com/documentation/http_live_streaming/enabling_low
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23Digital Public Library Ecosystem 2023 Report
38. Blackwell, Coan, Mason, and Parker, “Digital Audiobooks in
Public Libraries,” April 2021, infotoday.com/.cilmag/apr21/
Blackwell-Coan-Mason-Parker--Digital-Audiobooks
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39. Palace’s Audible Studios titles can be viewed here:
https://market.thepalaceproject.org/recent?publisher
=Audible+Studios.
40. McIllroy, “AI Comes to Audiobooks,” October 29, 2021,
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher
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41. Doctorow, “We Need to Talk About Audible,” 2020.
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/
libraries/article/84384-we-need-to-talk-about
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42. “Comics Plus Doubles Circulation in First Half of 2022,”
LibraryPass, July 19, 2022. librarypass.com/2022/07/19/
comics-plus-doubles-circulation-in-first-half-of-2022/.
43. company.overdrive.com/2022/09/15/new-80-titles
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44. Berens and Noorda, “Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use
Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use,” American
Library Association. September 2023.
45. Panorama Project, “Public Library Events Book Sales Survey,”
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46. loc.gov/loc/lcib/0601/c.html.
47. McEvoy, 2020, forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/
2020/07/22/sales-of-white-fragility-and-other-anti-racism
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48. If the distributor, such as OverDrive or Taylor and Francis, had
that data, it would be anonymized because borrowing records
are not linked to patrons’ personally identifiable information.
The library stores PII, and the distributor would be able to
store use-data.
49. “Uncertain Times: Budgets and Funding 2022,”
Library
Journal,
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51. The quoted librarian is Michelle Jeske, in Daniel A. Gross,
“The Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books,” September
2, 2021, newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/
an-app-called-libby-and-the-surprisingly-big-business-of
-library-e-books.
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Published December 2023. © 2023 American Library Association.
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