If you’ve ever rented an audio or e-book from your local library, you may have waited in a long digital line for a copy or wondered why there aren’t just more digital editions available.
But providing digital options to readers comes at a steep cost to libraries. Librarians must balance trying to provide a full range of services without breaking the budget. In today's political and economic environment, that can be a challenge.
The public library price tag
Providing digital copies of books to patrons can be difficult, with varying agreements and vendor — and patron — expectations.
Anne Mangano, collections services coordinator at the Iowa City Public Library, said the licensing agreements for libraries to provide e-books or audio books on the popular library app Libby are expensive.
“You may be able to get that copy on Amazon or Apple books for $12, $20. We're paying $65, we're paying $85, for audiobooks that can be $125 per copy. And we get those copies, sometimes for one year, sometimes for two years, sometimes for 24 checkouts, and then we have to repurchase it.”
After the copy is purchased, and although it’s a digital copy, it can only go to one person at a time, just like a physical book. On top of that, the library may have to pay multiple times for popular titles or after a certain amount of time or checkouts have passed.
“The publishers have set the terms and they've been a little bit upfront about it, in that if it's inconvenient to use it at your public library, you will be more compelled to buy it for yourself,” Mangano said.
Another popular library app, Hoopla, doesn’t have a wait time like Libby, because the library doesn’t curate the material’s availability by purchasing the copies. In that business model, any time a patron checks out a title, the library is charged. Mangano said an individual checkout can cost the library from $0.99 to $3.99, which adds up at the end of the month in the library's bill and can be hard to manage.
Last month the Iowa City Public Library removed e-books and audiobooks from Hoopla that cost more than $1.99, which was a difficult decision for library staff.
“We want people to use the library however they want to,” said Elsworth Carman, library director at the Iowa City Public Library. “So, when we talk about the burden of cost, it's never to dissuade users — we want you to use what's comfortable and what works well. But I think being realistic and honest about that is also part of our job as a city department, to make sure that these things are known and the challenges are known.”
Mangano also noted that patrons should know that when they get a notification from Hoopla encouraging them to check out more books before the end of the month, that message is coming from a corporation, not the library.
BookTok connects readers
In addition to providing reading material digitally, librarians are using virtual tools to reach out to their patrons — especially TikTok. “BookTok,” a subcommunity in the app, is all about sharing book recommendations, gushing over authors and celebrating a culture of reading.
“We wanted to figure out a way where we could make videos to be part of the conversation,” said Kelly Marble, digital marking specialist at the Des Moines Public Library. “We didn't think we would be doing dances or anything like that on TikTok, but seeing people talk about books, we were like, ‘We have teams of librarians who are experts at recommending books, and how can we get their recommendations in front of people?’”
Marble started sharing a roundup of the library’s most requested books each month on TikTok. She also started a video series called “While You Wait,” which recommends books that are similar to popular requests that have a long wait period to become available.
For example, for readers in a long hold line to access God of the Woods by Liz Moore, Marble recommends checking out The Searcher by Tana French, Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King or When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain.
@desmoinespubliclibrary While You Wait: Readalikes for Popular Titles like God of the Woods by Liz Moore, The Lonely Hearts Trivia Night by Lauren Farnsworth, and The Briar Club by Kate Quinn. #LibraryTok #BookTok #Readalikes #BookRwcommendations #Thrillers #RomComs #HistoricalFiction ♬ original sound - Des Moines Public Library
The Des Moines Public Library’s TikTok account has attracted more than 16,000 followers. Marble said while reading is often a solitary activity, these online spaces have created a virtual community to discuss books.
“Social media has really made a place for readers to connect in a way that they really didn't have before.”
It’s a new type of relationship that libraries have with these digital patrons. Though they might be voracious readers, some of them might not even enter the library building.
“They're still library card holders, and they can still get a lot of the benefits of a library card without coming into the library, but we'd always love to see them in the library,” Marble said. “So we always love to maintain that relationship to maybe get them to one of our AViD events — our Authors Visiting in Des Moines events in the spring — or we have the fall author series coming up. So, we do try to convert people who have only interacted with us digitally to coming in and engaging with us in person. But if they only ever engage with us digitally, we're still getting resources and books into people's hands.”
New ALA president champions Library Bill of Rights
While there have never been more ways to read and engage with fellow readers, there are also an increasing number of challenges facing libraries.
Conservative politicians have been trying to restrict the type of material available in libraries across the country. A law from the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature went into effect in early August that bans books with sexual content from K-12 school libraries. While Republicans such as Gov. Kim Reynolds argue these books are an inappropriate distraction, library advocates say they already have a system set in place to vet the books in their collection.
Sam Helmick, community and access services coordinator at the Iowa City Public Library, is the new president of the American Library Association. They said it’s important to remember that the Library Bill of Rights — a document housed by the ALA, which was first written by a previous director of the Des Moines Public Library — is a collection of articles that came from Iowa values.
“I think we've always been known for leaning in to these hard intellectual freedom conversations. And so to get to represent that and share it with the wider world is incredible,” they said.
Helmick said Iowa has the most libraries in the nation per capita, and the fourth most overall. They said small and large libraries across the nation create opportunities for community conversation and engagement.
“It's an absolute delight, and so if I can use my time and energy to further that, it feels like time well spent.”
Helmick said they believe the cultural conversation about book bans is connected to class issues.
“If we're talking about collections, great. If we're talking about dismantling publicly-funded institutions that make sure people have water and heat and cool if they're under-housed... then that's a harder conversation... The best way to really know what's going on in your library is to use it.”
To hear more from these conversations listen to Talk of Iowa, hosted by Charity Nebbe. Dani Gehr produced this episode.
