Long Beach Joins Books Unbanned

Natalie Canalis of the Long Beach Post News notes in this piece that “Free digital Long Beach Public Library cards will soon be available to teens across the nation in an effort to offset bookbanning in other parts of the country, thanks to a new partnership between Long Beach and the Brooklyn Public Library.”

RF has posted about Books Unbanned before. Brooklyn Public started the initiative and has been joined by Seattle, Boston Public, Los Angeles County, San Diego, and now Long Beach.

These libraries are able to provide access without public funds through generous donations. Even if carping critics in these areas want to object that their tax dollars are funding immortality, they can’t make a case.

Thanks to Long Beach for joining the cause. As noted by Fritzi Bodenheimer of Brooklyn Public Library in the article, there is need for even more library participation, awareness, and advocacy: “Since we launched in April of 2022, we’ve had about almost 10,000 young people sign up for a card, and they’re from all 50 states, and they’ve checked out … close to or maybe over 300,000 books. It’s incredibly exciting and heartwarming, and it’s also incredibly heartbreaking because it means there’s a need.”

RF encourages libraries—or at least those libraries that won’t punished politically for standing for the freedom to read—to join in or at least spread the news about Books Unbanned and the Palace Project’s Banned Book Club.

If you haven’t yet read the heartfelt testimonies from teens using Books Unbanned, you may read Brooklyn’s document here. RF commends brave librarians everywhere fighting for the freedom to read in time when narrow-minded, manacle souled, and authoritarian elements threaten not just books but our very democracy.

The Briet Dilemma

We at RF have written favorably about the Briet Project before. Nathalie op de Beeck wrote about it today in Publishers Weekly, and it is good to see progress on it.

The author notes “With publishers and libraries at odds over e-book licensing’s long-term expense, hold times, and ethical concerns, a new platform called Briet is pursuing an open-access approach. Briet invites publishers to sell their e-books to libraries outright, providing universal, perpetual access.”

All good so far—ownership of titles and simultaneous access are great.

“Briet is still getting off the ground, but thousands of e-books are already available, the inventory is growing, and a toolkit is readily accessible for libraries and patrons to explore.”

Do check out the title list—lots of very interesting books, and a very useful collection for diversity featuring authors other than the usual best sellers.

“[Maria] Bustillos expects to make the platform available on Thorium Reader, using the latest iteration of Readium software, which powers the web-based e-book windows already familiar from the IA Open Library. In the finished version of Briet, Bustillos said, ‘we can offer LCP [licensed content protection] encryption to people that need and want it. Mind you, if librarians are interested now, we can put the tech pieces together and it’s ready for prime time, completely. You can come and buy books there’.”

RF Greatly admires Bustillos’ work and agrees with her points:

“It’s a real five-alarm fire for libraries,” Bustillos said, because the revolving door of e-book licensing makes collection development expensive and impermanent. “A lot of writers don’t realize that their digital books cannot be sold” due to DRM agreements, she continued. “If authors who love libraries and who became writers in libraries, like me, come to understand that there are commercial constraints on the availability of their digital books, we should all demand that this be in our contracts,” she said. Briet’s goal, she concluded, is to ensure that its inventory of e-books remains perpetually “ownable and archivable” by libraries.

So why, then, is the “dilemma” in our header? Once again, it is a question of patron access—specifically, how they access. Long experience has taught us that nearly all readers want one place to go to access their library ebooks. If there are multiple places, most tend to choose one favorite and go there, ignoring other options. That’s why Palace is so careful to be “the one app to rule them all.” It harvests content from many platforms. Even so, it’s a challenge to drive adoption. Readers—and, frankly, most library staff (and I’ve taught literally hundreds of them how to support digital library readers)—simply don’t want to learn something new and switch. Given the choice between what they already know that has the most popular content and a startup without it, I would bet a substantial sum that few will visit the new experience very often. Suddenly, the library is sinking money (even at VERY favorable costs—thanks very much, Briet!) into a collection that seldom gets hits.

Please, pretty please, with a bow around it and a side of sugar, find some way to make what we might buy accessible in one of our apps—preferably the non-profit Palace, but any of them. Thorium is an EPUB reader. Are these EPUB files? There is certainly a technical solution. These would be great additions to our other collections. Separate from the others ebooks in our collections, I worry they will languish unread. Most digital readers launch from our apps, not the library catalog. Let us put the content where most readers will find it.

There would be anther advantage. Suppose the Big Publishers decide to pull out of states that pass reasonable ebook laws. It could happen. Fine. We use this content, integrated with what we get from Indie publishers, drive readers to it, tout it, create exposure and demand for it, while we tell library readers and legislators from village to federal government how the big guys seem to think public funds are troughs for them to feed at, gobbling up at a rate far higher for digital than print, ripping off the public and unfairly restricting reading. We offer much new interesting content while we—by law—withhold funds from unfair contracts and advocate for change. It would give libraries a stronger hand while we hold out for necessary and fair change. And we can use all the help we can get in any upcoming difficulties.

In the meantime, RF encourages experimenting with Briet. If you are a library that could drive lots of use to these ebooks, go for it! Many of us will perforce wait until these wonderful titles aren’t separate from the rest of our collection.

Webinar of interest (It’s free!):

BIblitheca is offering a webinar that may be of interest to librarians and lovers of reading who live in areas undergoing book challenges. Register here:

August 6, 2025 (11AM CT)

Book challenges and other attempts to restrict or remove access to materials are making headlines and keeping librarians up at night. Get the facts and the tools to protect access in your library and support your community’s right to read.

In this webinar, Bibliotheca Solution Consultant Lisa Stamm, MLS, welcomes Tasslyn Magnusson and Sabrina Baeta from PEN America, along with Sanobar Wilkins from EveryLibrary’s Fight for the First initiative, for a straightforward, solutions-focused discussion on defending intellectual freedom in today’s highly charged climate.  

In this live session, you’ll learn how to:  

• Understand the current scope and tactics of book challenges  

• Respond calmly and confidently to patron concerns  

• Access ready-to-use resources for staff training and public communication  

• Leverage partners, talking points, and community supporters to strengthen your stance  

• Build a proactive strategy that aligns with your library’s policies and values  

Whether you’re preparing for potential censorship challenges or already facing them, this webinar will equip you with practical steps to “meet the moment” and keep your shelves open to everyone.

Article In Computers in Libraries and Some Unpublished Parts of the CiL article

The ReadersFirst Working Group has published an article in Computers in Libraries. We are happy that a long follow-up study to the Monash University/our 2018 study of the ebook book market in Canada and the USA was published in July of 2025.

You may read it here: https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jul25/Blackwell-Halperin-Mason-Parker--Ebook-Availability-Licensing-and-Pricing-in-Canada-and-the-US-A-Follow-Up-Study.shtml

A number of paragraphs from the paper were omitted from the published version of our study to pare it down to meet journal length requirements, even though it was a double-article as published. For those who might be interested in seeing what was left out, please read here (sorry to point you to another link!) There is additional background on the study and—we think, at least—some interesting unpublished conclusions that do not reflect well on big publishers and further explore the plight of the digital library selector in 2025.

If you want to see the 200+ titles used in the study and various details about the vendor holdings, look here.

Hope you enjoy!

Library Futures Podcast on Ebooks in Libraries

Laura Crosset and Mary Needham from Library Futures are creating a podcast in three parts that will air over the next three weeks.

It promises to be lively and provocative. If you have any interest in how library digital content is provided, acquired, read, and—all-too-often!—restricted, it will be worth tuning in.

Here’s part of the transcript from the trailer:

Laura Crossett 00:30

And in A Podcast About Ebooks, a three part miniseries from Library Futures, we'll take you through some of the history of ebooks, what happened when they entered libraries, and how libraries, library workers, and organizations like ours are trying to preserve library rights in the digital age.

Mary Needham 00:46

You'll hear the story from ebook experts, from the voices of librarians who were on the ground when ebooks first arrived in libraries, and from those who were trying to forge a future where ebooks are books – books libraries can own, preserve and share just as they have with books throughout history.

Laura Crossett 01:02

“We are the People of the Book,” Cory Doctorow once said. “Our books are us.They are our outboard memory banks, and they contain the moral, intellectual and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today. Books are older than copyright.” He says “books are older than publishing. Books are older than printing!” But as he notes, the people who make ebooks have no respect for our books. Quote, They say that when you buy an ebook or an audiobook that's delivered to you digitally, you are demoted from an owner to a licensor, from a reader to a mere user.

I’ve always loved that speech, and we will link to it in the show notes. At Library Futures we believe in readers, and we believe in digital rights, and we believe a book is a book is a book no matter what form it takes.

Thanks, Laura and Mary! How libraries will provide access to digital content, even as many commercial and narrow-minded social forces work to restrict access to library materials of all types, is one of the biggest issues facing us. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!

New Jersey's Ebook Bill Introduced

Sen. Andrew Zwicker of New Jersey has introduced a bill that, if passed, would not only stand alone as an important step towards fair library digital content terms but would also “trigger” the new Connecticut law.

Thank you, Sen. Zwicker!

Andrew Albanese has provided a discussion on Words&Money, including thoughts from Kyle Courtney, who has been instrumental in advising on ebook legislation in many states. For still more on Mr. Courtney’s work, see eBook Study Group.

Albanese’s piece is worth a full read (disclosure—I am quoted in it). He cites Courtney thusly:

“New Jersey has taken the bold step to say that libraries—and the public they serve—deserve access to digital books under terms that reflect the essential role libraries play in preservation, access, and education,” Courtney told Words & Money. “It also safeguards interlibrary loan systems and allows for the creation of non-public preservation copies, ensuring that collections can be maintained without undue burden—or books simply 'disappearing' from the shelves.”

He notes that this bill is more aggressive in some ways than the Connecticut law:

While the bill will likely be amended as it progresses—if it progresses—it is at first glance a more aggressive bill than the one that passed in Connecticut, making it likely to draw strong opposition from the major publishers.

For example, New Jersey’s bill includes a provision that would bar New Jersey libraries from agreeing to prices “greater than that charged to the public for the same item.”

That would be a massive change, if adopted. Typically, library new release ebooks from the major publishers can cost libraries $65 or more for a metered license. According to the plain text of New Jersey’s bill, those prices would have to be closer to consumer prices, usually around $15, for libraries to license them.

Similar to Connecticut’s law, the New Jersey bill would also forbid libraries from entering into licenses that restrict the number of lends over the course of a license agreement [that is, metered either by time—say, one or two years—or by number of circulations, such as 26] unless the publisher also offers a perpetual access option “at a price which is considered reasonable and equitable” by the parties.

As always, RF wishes to thank the many medium-sized to Indie publishers who already offer terms acceptable under the CT law and NJ bill. Expect opposition of some sort from the Big 5 publishers. Expect, too, legislative action from still other states. Library digital content is increasingly unsustainable for most smaller and even some larger libraries. Legislators on both sides of the aisle get it. The current Big 5 terms do not make for responsible use of taxpayer dollars when compared to what we pay for print.

eBooks, Collection Development Policies & AI

As we know from Library Future's work on Hoopla, AI-generated work is making its way into library purchasing platforms and collections, prompting discussion at many libraries about how to respond. The North Olympic Library System (NOLS) based in Port Angeles, Washington has taken a lead, adapting its Collection Development Policy to address AI. Sarah Morrison, a NOLS librarian and digital book selector, shares the NOLS addition and the thought behind it in Alki, the Washington Library Association's journal. The article discusses:

• The ethical question of author compensation with AI-generated content trained on pirated copies of authors' eBooks and eAudiobooks

• Questions about the quality of AI without the authenticity and intentionality an author provides

• The challenges of writing a policy given how new the technology is and how much it might change

Is your library considering AI-generated or AI-narrated content in its Collection Development Policy or selection procedures? Let Readers First know if this is something you’d like us to explore more.

"Books Were Harmed in the Making of This Opinion": Kyle Courtney on the Llano Decision

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on the Internet. I did want to post something about the stupid—no, wait, that’s not right, for we might excuse stupidity for not knowing better but not mean politics masquerading as judicial opinion—majority decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Little v. Llano County but don’t have legal expertise. Fortunately, a lawyer has penned a far better takedown of this ill-informed and dangerous ruling than I could muster. I point you then, gentle reader, to Books Were Harmed in the Making of This Opinion: The Fifth Circuit Rebrands Censorship as "Collection Management" by Kyle Courtney. The piece is on Substack. While there, consider subscribing (it’s free, if you want). His work on law as it relates to libraries is always worth a read.

Here are a few highlights:

That’s right: the federal appeals court in charge of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi held that if your local government doesn’t want you reading Anne Frank's Diary, They Called Themselves the K.K.K., or a book called Butt and Fart — all real titles targeted in this case — you’re out of luck.

In doing so, the Fifth Circuit diverged sharply from other federal courts, teeing up a likely First Amendment showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court — assuming, of course, anyone there still thinks the First Amendment applies to libraries.

These weren’t pulled because of low circulation or outdated information — they were removed because a handful of county officials thought the ideas were too dangerous for public shelves. A lower court federal judge called it what it was: viewpoint discrimination and issued an injunction to undo the purge. A Fifth Circuit panel agreed, warning that the First Amendment doesn’t allow officials to treat libraries like ideological vending machines they can restock to taste.

The centerpiece of the Fifth Circuit majority’s ruling is its declaration that the First Amendment’s protection of free speech does not encompass a public library patron’s right to access information. Yes, the First Amendment famously protects authors and speakers – but does it protect the audience’s ability to receive what they say? For decades, courts have said YES: the Supreme Court noted in Stanley v. Georgia (1969) that the Constitution safeguards “the right to receive information and ideas.”

And in the landmark Board of Education v. Pico case, a plurality of U.S Supreme Court justices recognized that removing books from school libraries simply to suppress ideas violates the First Amendment’s core commands. The Fifth Circuit itself, in Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School Board (5th Cir. 1995), adopted that same principle, holding that officials violate the Constitution if their “substantial motivation” for removing a library book is disagreement with its viewpoint.

None of that mattered to the ten majority judges in the Llano County majority: The majority dismissed the Pico plurality as “non-binding” and overruled the Fifth Circuit’s own precedent in Campbell as “mistaken.” (!!!)

Read on in Mr. Courtney’s piece to see his takedown of their legal “reasoning” of libraries as “government speech” and the dangerous implications of this decision.

Let’s call this decision what it is: judicial activism promoting a narrow-minded political ideology and a mean-souled Grundyism. It’s implications go beyond Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, though it is certain to shrink library collections there. If upheld in the Supreme Court, it would radically reshape how libraries operate, potentially undermine state freedom to read laws, and harm not books but readers. People would have to buy any books that local politicos didn’t like—an unhappy burden in a time of economic uncertainty, especially for parents. The views of a few would circumscribe the reading of many. As part of a larger attack on universities, on a multiplicity of viewpoints, on pluralistic democracy, this ruling makes perfect sense. In light of the First Amendment, and for all who value books, it makes no sense at all.

June 2 Update: ALA Annual Ebook Friday Update

With the passage of the Connecticut Ebook Law and New Jersey’s Ebook bill introdcued, the ALA Core Ebooks Interest Group Meeting agenda is changing (again). Please join us for an informative session!

“Ebook Friday” Agenda

June 27, 2025:

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 103 B C

9:00: Introduction, Ground Rules

9:05 - 9:30:  Andrew Albanese: his new site, trends in the digital market, thoughts on advocacy going forward (keynote)

 9:45 to 19:45:  Conversation: Where are we? Do we agree on the issues that need to be addressed?

 9:45-11:00 Political and other advocacy:

• ULC and CULC: Vicky Varga, Lisa Wells, Angela Goodrich

• Ebook Study Group: Kyle Courtney and Juliya Zuskina

• LIbrary Futures:  Jennie Rose Halperin

• Connecticut Ebook Bill:  Ellen Paul

• New Jersey Ebook Bill:  Michael Maziekien

• Q&A

 11:00  - 11:30: Conversation:  thoughts about how to move forward–laws? What is “reasonable”? Withholding funds from bad contracts? 

 11:30 to 11:45: Responses to Book Banning:

• Books Unbanned:  Amy Mikel

• Banned Book Club:  Micah May

11:45 to 11:55:

• Palace update, ownership of digital content and new license models:  Micah May 

11:55 to noon:  Wrap up

Update to Publisher Price Watch: May 2025

Greetings digital books colleagues!

As we have time, Readers First updates its Publisher Price Watch, a project where we select 20 popular books from each of the top trade publishers and compare their prices across five formats sold at retail and to libraries.

Summary for May 2025:

Since the first posting of Publisher Price Watch in May 2022:

• HarperCollins library eBook prices have increased at an annualized rate of 12.9% per year

• Macmillan library eAudio prices have increased at an annualized rate of 12.5% per year

• The annualized rate of increase for all five publishers is 1.9% for library eBooks and 3.6% for library eAudiobooks.

• By contrast, retail prices on print and eBooks remained flat and retail prices on eAudiobooks fell at an annualized rate of 4%.

This update includes an analysis of a possible correlation between price increases and the decreasing number of unique authors represented in one consortium's digital book collection despite increases in its collection budget.

If you have questions or feedback about Publishers Price Watch, please contact us.