“The biggest complaint librarians have about the service is its policy of only allowing one user on a campus to ‘check out’ an e-book at a time. In other words, if one researcher is using an e-book, no one else on the campus can access that title until the book is put away. netLibrary officials say that the policy was set at the request of publishers, who worry that putting their books on netLibrary will cut the number of multiple copies they sell to libraries. That is something the company is looking at changing, said Mr. Rosy. He said he believes that publishers are now more willing to listen to the company’s suggestions about contract terms.” – Chronicle of Higher Education quoting netLibrary leader Rich Rosy. Item found via Library Stuff.
The TeleRead take: It’s about time. From the start, TeleRead has been opposed to access limitations as an artificial restriction on knowledge. TeleRead would reward publishers and writers by the number of accesses, with revenue caps that book publishers could change by gambling money up front–one way to “insure” against the national digital library fund being bankrupted by mega-best-sellers.
