#ebookSOS

1/ 🤔 Who really curates #library collections in the digital age?
💡 Our latest webinar pinpoints an uncomfortable truth: publishers, rather than libraries, are making decisions about our access to culture and knowledge!
🔗 youtu.be/_WPbUF8NAng
#eBooks #ebookSOS #eLending

Reinforces what we have been saying about how the lack of digital ownership for libraries actively inhibits them from exercising some of their core functions - one of which is archiving and preservation.

Slides and document on #ebookSOS challenges for law libraries available here - drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Thanks for having us along to talk about how #ebookSOS impacts law libraries! For follow up, feel free to get in touch here, or with @heroicendeavour.bsky.social or @cathalmccauley.bsky.social directly.

Link for slides in post below.

Come along and listen to @heroicendeavour.bsky.social talk about the latest updates in the world of ebooks in the UK! #ebookSOS

YouTube video by Knowledge Rights 21 eBooks, eLending & European Copyright Law – A KR21 Study

For those who may have missed it, the recording for the @knowledgerights21.org webinar on the new iSDL model and the report is now up on YouTube

Key differences include a provision for compensating/remuneration for authors as well as stronger data privacy provisions.

It uses iSDL as a term instead of CDL mainly to distinguish between the different legal and jurisdictional contexts in which each operates (iSDL = Europe, CDL = US) rather than any difference in function or approach.

A new report just released by @knowledgerights21.org on libraries and a proposed secure digital lending (or iSDL) model stresses the need for legal reform to allow libraries to operate in the digital environmental and to protect libraries’ right to digitise and user rights.

CT House approves bill placing limits on library e-book contracts The bill would put restrictions on contracts with e-book publishers to try to address the costs of e-books and audiobooks for libraries.

Great to hear the bill has now been passed! After previous bills regulating publishers were challenged & struck down, this approaches the issue from a different angle, but with hopefully the same result! If publishers won’t stop offering exploitative contracts, CT’s libraries now can’t sign them!

Smashing it! 🥳

"[Clarivate's] business model is not one the JH Libraries will support."

Welcome to the resistance, Johns Hopkins University libraries!

blogs.library.jhu.edu/2025/05/chan...

Headline: Statement: Connecticut Libraries Applaud State House and Senate Passage of E-Book Legislation, Urge Governor Lamont’s Signature / May 15, 2025 by Gary Price

“This vote affirms that the State of Connecticut is no longer willing to be handcuffed by Big Publishing’s unfair pricing for digital content." --Ellen Paul, ED of the Connecticut Library Consortium

WE LOVE TO SEE IT.

That’s the problem we have with digital ‘ownership’ (or the complete lack thereof) - you don’t own diddly squat, and so they can control how, what, where, when, on what device, even if you get to keep accessing it. Extending that control to physical items? Now THAT’s unethical!

I’m going to forgive John the clickbait headline b/c he almost certainly didn’t choose it. Simple answer - DUH.

Yes, it’s ethical, it’s also THE LAW - little thing called ‘first sale doctrine’, and trust me when I say we DO NOT want to lose that and allow manufacturers to control products forever

Will it solve the problem immediately or even long-term? No. Much more is needed. But it’s a signal to publishers that they can’t keep exploiting libraries - and that allowing libraries to BE libraries (and not publisher cash cows!) is an issue of importance to legislators and society.

It may seem like an odd, somewhat oblique approach, but it’s a way to try to bring publishers to the table without legislation that would almost certainly be challenged, like previous attempts to approach it from a copyright or price regulation have.

Some promising news from Connecticut - a new bill stopping libraries from entering into ebook contracts that prevent them from performing customary functions like ILL, preservation copies etc, as we know a lot of ebook contracts do! It’s a small step to poke publishers to change practice… #ebookSOS

Image tile featuring a small Internet Archive logo to the lower right. Text of image reads: "[O]wnership rights are critical to restoring and maintaining the public's trust in digital marketplaces. Without them, Americans are paying the same or even higher prices for digital goods that can be revoked, altered, or rendered inaccessible without warning..." Letter to U.S. Federal Trade Commission from public interest organizations

Can a digital “sale” be real if it can vanish overnight?

Sen. Ron Wyden, Internet Archive, Public Knowledge & allies are calling on the FTC to protect true ownership in the digital marketplace.

More ➡️ blog.archive.org/2025/05/07/p...

📢Call to Action: Improve the Discoverability of #OpenTextbooks

Developed by LIBER Educational Resources Working Group, the new Step-by-Step Guide identifies five steps, serving as a practical checklist for implementation at your library.

📚 Find it here: ow.ly/6E0w50VOAgW

#OpenAccess #OER

Scottish Universities Press unveils new open access textbook programme for 2025 — Scottish Universities Press We are proud to announce that Scottish Universities Press (SUP) is launching an open access textbook programme, commencing in May 2025. We are now open for textbook proposals from authors affiliated ...

“We are seeking to address the significant need for more affordable and accessible educational resources across the UK higher education landscape.”

Significant need, indeed! Well done, @scotunipress.bsky.social!

If it costs this much in print, just imagine how much they’re charging for the ebook version of this AI-generated slop. #ebookSOS

Are there any law firm librarians out there who could give us information about their experiences with ebook access in a legal practice setting? Off the record, anonymous etc - we’re just looking to get a better insight into how these issues affect practitioners, as opposed to students/academics etc

Now there’s an idea! Pocket glitter cannons…

Pink text box that reads ‘Seriously considering filling my pockets with glitter so when someone near me says something really stupid or rude, I'll just reach into my pocket, with a dead expression, and release the glitter into the sky above their head and watch it shower over them like a baptism of common sense.’

I wonder if we start taking this approach every time we come across an outrageously-priced ebook, how long it would take before every library in the country was aglow with glitter… 🤔 #ebookSOS

Unlocking eBooks Research into the broken market for library eBook acquisition and lending.

If you’ve not already contacted your MP about #ebookSOS, please do so! We have a template letter ready for you to use or adapt.

www.cilip.org.uk/page/unlocki...

If you’re in a medium- to large-sized academic library & you lack any of the titles on this list, you should be ordering them when the fiscal year rolls over.

The current Secretary of Defense really does want officers to be jackbooted automata. 📚

Libraries just want to own books. That’s it. It’s not hard to understand. Publishers needlessly complicate the picture with talk of models and licences and access, but it’s as simple as that. Libraries want to own books that we can lend to our users. 📚 #ebooksos

A thing about the IMLS getting defunded, is that book publishers deliberately make libraries pay way more for the ebooks they lend out.

When libraries begin cutting their budgets, their ebook selections are going to be one of the first services hit and hit hardest.