Joshua Pikka

Imagine what would happen at the Minot Public Library if a book publisher pulled up to the building in a big van and ran inside while grabbing every book they had published. It might attract the eye of the police station right across the street. The stunning truth is that in a way this does happen very often, only with ebooks instead of books made of paper and ink.

Ebooks have always been controversial. Some readers delighted when they got their hands on them and took them places they would never take a paper book. While other readers thought it preposterous to give up their beloved ink and paper for a backlit screen. Well, the controversy does not end there. EBook use and the models used for purchase remain controversial, especially in public libraries like our own Minot Public Library.

Our patrons really do love their ebooks and eAudio books. In the year 2026 we circulated about 35,000 more of those items than we did in the year 2021. That is quite a lot of growth in five years. Ebooks are very popular and don’t seem to be slowing down in the future. They are amazing because they are very portable and you can do things like increase or change the font to make them easier to read. This does not mean that there are no problems with ebooks however. Most of the problems result from how eBooks are offered to libraries for purchase.

I think that most people know that if you are in the construction business you often get a discount when you purchase supplies at a home improvement store. Cosmetologists often can buy shampoos and other products cheaper than you or I can. However, did you know that when buying ebooks librarians have to pay more than a regular customer? More than that, although libraries purchase ebooks they rarely ever own them. Most ebooks are purchased for a certain number of uses or a certain amount of time and then disappear, as if in a cloud of smoke.

For example, if I were to buy an electronic copy of a new science fiction book like Dungeon Crawler Carl from the Kindle store it would cost me $5 and it would theoretically sit in my account until I die and my account is closed. However, if I as a librarian want to buy a copy for my patrons to read, the library has to pay $30 instead. On top of the 5x price increase, it is only ours until it has been checked out 100 times. At that point it is no longer ours and reverts to the publisher. Other publishing models include buying the title for a certain period of time, and then once that time is up we would no longer have access to the title.

So, why do libraries get such a “raw deal” when it comes to ebooks? In short it comes from a group of five companies that dominate the publishing market. Almost all of the books that we see in libraries and stores come from the same 5 companies. Since these companies own the copyright on all the books, they can dictate the terms in which they are bought and sold. Libraries are forced to agree with whatever deal they decide to offer.

What does this mean for you, the library patron? It means that our budgets that are already shrinking are insufficient to keep up with the rising demand that we are facing. If you are wondering why the wait for popular books is so long, it is because publishers charge libraries inflated costs. If you are wondering why we may not have a great selection of ebooks, it is because a lot of our budget has to go to re-purchasing the more popular titles that publishers have taken back from us.

So, what can a library do? We can not simply turn back the clock. Although it would be much cheaper to have everyone read paper books, there is nothing that can really stop the rise of ebooks at this point. Ebooks are not going away, they are just getting more popular. To date, attempts to negotiate with publishers or to enact laws that force them to give libraries more fair terms have failed. As of right now we are left with rising demands for ebooks and unfair business practices and unsustainable models in which we can purchase them.

We at the Minot Public Library have had to make some cuts. This year we stopped subscribing to a popular e-Book platform called Hoopla. Hoopla was a great resource that was well loved, but was even more expensive than a standard e-book platform. Some titles were as much as ten times more expensive. Hoopla had a different model for use as it charged libraries based on use per item. Which can be really good as we were not paying for items that we did not need. However, they did require an email for each patron and were known to market tiles to patrons by email designed to increase the amount that they can charge a library. Eventually the increased use of Hoopla was just not sustainable.

While librarians and publishers can argue about if the current models are fair, one thing is clear, ebooks are not going away. According to a 2022 PEW research study, about ¾ of Americans have read an ebook in the past year. Use of our ebook collection at the Minot Public Library just keeps increasing year after year. Of course, this only makes wait times longer on our e-Book titles.

We at the Minot Public Library are still committed to serving our patrons in the ways that they wish to be served, and this includes with electronic books and audio books. We just have to hope that one day we will be given more fair terms in which to purchase material, and hope that patrons can understand why the waitlist is so long. The library staff does not want to change the habits of its patrons, but just wants to inform them about recent trends with eBooks and how it impacts your reading habits. So, keep reading your eBooks. Just don’t forget to come see us at the library every once in a while.