Public libraries serve a critical public function. They promote access to knowledge for all, regardless of wealth or background; seek to preserve and maintain the availability of books that can no longer be found in bookstores; and bring readers and books together.
Libraries have long operated by buying and lending out books, which they can do without the permission of copyright owners who might see such activities as a threat to their markets. However, the growth of ebooks presents new challenges for the library sector. Lending ebooks necessarily requires public libraries to make copies and transmissions. As these acts fall within the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, this grants publishers greater control over library use of and access to ebooks. The elending project sought to support Australian libraries to navigate the challenges of elending within the existing regulatory framework, while exploring potential avenues for reform.
Before we could evaluate the efficacy of existing elending frameworks, it was necessary to build a comprehensive and independent evidence-base to test the impact of elending on public libraries, and through them, society. This evidence-base focused on the availability of books in digital form and the terms of this access. This accumulated evidence, which is openly available here, formed the basis for our evaluation of national and international elending laws and policies, and proposals for regulatory, legal and policy reform.
However, even in light of this evidence-base, there was still a poor understanding of the impact of elending on book sales. Publishers and book sale platforms have expressed concerns that eborrowing is a more perfect substitute for the purchase of books, fanning fears that readers would get a library card and never buy a book again. Questions about the relationship between elending and book sales are notoriously difficult to test, and quality data has long been inaccessible. To address this concern, we extended the scope of the elending project, and, in November 2020, we launched Untapped: The Australian Literary Heritage Project. This novel initiative provided essential data-driven insights, finding that there was no evidence of elending negatively affecting book sales and some evidence that elending could modestly improve sales for certain books. More information can be found about Untapped, its innovative methodology, and its key findings in this public report and on the Untapped webpage.
Taking Control of the Future: Towards Workable Elending
Rebecca Giblin and Kimberlee Weatherall
Book chapter in Navigating Copyright for Libraries: Purpose and Scope, Jessica Coates, Victoria Owen and Susan Reilly (eds), 2022
This open access chapter explores the need for reform of existing elending frameworks. Using the evidence accumulated during the elending project, the chapter considers three primary options for reform: the introduction of Controlled Digital Lending; a prohibition on publisher licensing practices that are contrary to public interest (like in some US states); and library-controlled elending platforms.
Exploring the Circulation of Digital Audiobooks: Australian Library Lending 2006-2017
Millicent Weber, Rebecca Giblin, Yanfang Ding and François Petitjean
Information Research, 2021
This study investigated patterns in digital audiobook and ebook circulation in Australian libraries to identify and analyse trends in the demand for audiobooks and ebooks. We found that audiobooks and ebooks have experienced substantial growth since 2006 and that this trend appears to be on a continued upwards trajectory.
Driven by Demand: Public Library Perspectives on the eLending Market
Jenny Kennedy, Rebecca Giblin, Kimberlee Weatherall and Julian Thomas
RMIT University, March 2020
This report presents findings from a national survey of Australian public libraries, with the findings showing that: libraries are investing significant amounts on elending; libraries prioritise acquisition of titles based on actual and anticipated demand over other considerations like price or licensing terms; and rigid licensing models that limit the number of loans or impose time restrictions have a notable impact on libraries’ curation role.
What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis Across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada
Jacob Flynn, Rebecca Giblin and François Petitjean
University of New South Wales Law Journal, 2019
Findings from this article reveal a ‘public domain effect’, with books in the public domain being generally more available, and at a lower cost, than those in copyright. Contrary to the ‘underuse hypothesis’, exclusive rights did not guarantee better availability or more investment in our sample of books. This suggests that lengthier copyright terms may restrict access and discourage availability of culturally significant works.
Available – But Not Accessible? Investigating Publisher E-Lending Licensing Practices
Rebecca Giblin, Jenny Kennedy, Kimberlee Weatherall, Daniel Gilbert, Julian Thomas and François Petitjean
Information Research, September 2019
This article presents findings from two studies that examined ebook availability and accessibility in Australia and across five jurisdictions. We found that ebook availability was patchy – 29% to 38% of titles were missing in Australia and titles were missing at rates of 29% to 41% internationally. Even where ebooks were available, they weren’t necessarily accessible or affordable: newer titles were less available than older titles; prices varied substantially across platforms and publishers; and libraries had little flexibility in licensing, with 98% of ebooks offered only under a single licence type.
What Can 100,000 Books Tell Us About the International Public Library e-Lending Landscape?
Rebecca Giblin, Jenny Kennedy, Charlotte Pelletier, Julian Thomas, Kimberlee Weatherall and François Petitjean
Information Research, September 2019
This article presents a comparative analysis of the relative availability of 100,000 books across five jurisdictions. For titles published by the Big 5 publishers, there was significant pricing variation across jurisdictions. A machine learning model showed publisher identity to be the strongest predictor of price and licence term variation, suggesting that the rights libraries get under these licences have nearly nothing to do with the characteristics of the individual titles.
The elending project is supported by formal partnerships with:
- National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA)
- Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA)
- State Library of Western Australia
- State Library of South Australia
- State Library of New South Wales
- Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service
- Gold Coast City Council
- Brisbane City Council
The project was led by Professor Rebecca Giblin (University of Melbourne). The other Chief Investigators were Professor Kimberlee Weatherall (University of Sydney), Professor Julian Thomas (RMIT) and Dr Paul Crosby (Macquarie University).
Our research team has also included Chief Investigators Professor Geoff Webb (Monash University) and Dr François Petitjean (Monash University), postdoctoral fellows Dr Jenny Kennedy (RMIT) and Dr Charlotte Pelletier (Monash University), Master’s student in Data Science Woratana Ngarmtrakulchol, and research assistants Dan Gilbert, Jacob Flynn and Emily van der Nagel.