Another big publisher has decided that making ebooks available to libraries is worth doing: Simon & Schuster(s CBS) announced Thursday that it’s making its full catalog of over 10,000 ebooks available for library lending. The decision follows a one-year pilot program in New York City.
New titles will be available at the time of publication. Each ebook is available for lending for a year before the library has to buy another copy. Simon & Schuster is working with the digital library distributors Baker & Taylor, 3M and Overdrive.
With Simon & Schuster’s announcement, all of the Big Five publishers are making their ebooks available to libraries at least in some fashion; apparently, fears that library lending would cut into paid book sales haven’t panned out.
“In early 2012, ALA began conversations with Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy and her leadership team,” American Library Association president Barbara Stripling said in a statement. “In our initial meeting in New York, it was clear that we had rather different perspectives on the merits of library ebook lending. Of course, much has changed in the past two years, and we’re so pleased that Simon & Schuster has moved library ebook lending from a pilot to a mainstream business for the company.”
This post was updated on Wednesday afternoon with a statement from the ALA.
