dduane:
arrows-for-pens:
distractedbyshinyobjects:
distractedbyshinyobjects:
The vulture capitalist hedge fund that bought and subsequently destroyed Toys R Us now owns Overdrive/Libby.
They have already begun making it worse/less usable and they have a chokepoint monopoly on the delivery method of ebooks borrowed from public libraries in the US.
A fun thing about capitalism is that rich people can buy something a lot of people love and depend on, and then destroy it for fun and profit, and there’s not really anything we can do about it.
And now they’re in closing negotiations to buy Simon and Schuster. I’m sure this will have no negative consequences for books at all.
I couldn’t get OP’s link to work so here’s a clean version: https://karawynn.substack.com/p/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries
They’ve bought it. :/
so I’ve seen this medium post going around on twitter and also tumblr and i just want to provide a US librarian’s perspective on the Overdrive/Libby side at least!
first of all, Overdrive absolutely has a monopoly and they are absolutely price-gouging libraries. ebook licenses cost on average $60 per copy, and they often come with a limited number of uses or a year-long license or other strings. (ask me how long we can circulate a $15 physical book! because it’s more than a year.) but that has been happening since WELL before KKR bought them out. i’m not here to cape for KKR, but the person to get mad at here is (primarily) the virtual monopoly. (and also the publishers, who generally set the T&C that their books are sold with.)
BUT. i did read the entire Medium post linked, but I think a number of the concerns are coming from a place of genuine but misinformed concern.
Deep Search is a new (and separate!) feature rolled out this spring– it lets you search across multiple libraries, if you have more than one library card. It’s actually a huge improvement to how searching used to work, where you used to have to search each library card separately. It’s entirely unrelated to the Notify Me feature, which I do think is a definite downgrade, and Overdrive has been frustratingly opaque with us about the reasons for the change. (I will say that many library networks didn’t ever offer the ability to suggest books via Libby/Overdrive– purchase requests were an opt-in feature.) I don’t doubt that there are profit-driven reasons for that change, but I also think that in general Libby is more usable these days than it’s ever been. and it’s been 3 years since the KKR buyout!
Relatedly, the Libby app was first released in 2017. It was meant to be a big improvement over the pretty clunky Overdrive app, and in most respects it was– except that it didn’t offer screenreader functionality. This was a huge misstep on Overdrive’s part, and they should have had screenreader support built in from the gate. But THAT is why Overdrive the app was only shut down in May of this year– they needed to get screenreaders up and running in Libby (which they did in fall of 2021) before they could begin to sundown the Overdrive app. And honestly, I’m glad they got rid of the old app! It doesn’t make sense to have two apps with the same functionality. It’s confusing for patrons, and it’s hard for librarians to support multiple apps (ask me how much I love when someone calls in and says “the library app isn’t working” and I have to ask which of five separate apps it could be.)
Again, Overdrive absolutely should have taken less than four years to get screenreaders working in Libby. Accessibility should have been a feature from the start, and I still find it frustrating that there’s no built-in autoscroll for people with mobility issues. But honestly, keeping the old app running for a while and gradually sunsetting it is good user support– it gives users time to transition slowly and helps librarians have lots of lead time to warn patrons about the change. And frankly, none of this has anything to do with KKR, which bought Overdrive three years after Libby was released!
I am absolutely not caping for KKR. I’m deeply concerned about venture capital in general, and I think KKR in particular’s purchase of S&S is a real fucking bad thing! I literally left my last job bc a VC buyout led to burnout and an RSI so bad I had to get major surgery. I don’t want capital in publishing! But I also don’t want people to panic about a series of arguments that don’t accurately represent the situation on the ground.
I see an article like this and frankly, I see what feels like well-intentioned fear-mongering. Libraries are dealing with a LOT of shit right now. We are underfunded and often overworked. We are the place people go for help with every section of our failing bureaucracy. Also, a lot of people are calling us pedophiles for providing kids with queer books! What we really do not need is a lot of people calling us in a panic with misinformed concerns about Overdrive– believe me, we know better than anyone the places in which it fails (mostly, charging us through the nose, which again it has been doing for waaaay longer than KKR was involved.)
So where do we go from here? Continue to support and advocate for your local library. (You don’t need to stop using Libby. In fact, the more users we have, the better we’re able to negotiate better pricing. If Libby really does enshittify, THEN we’ll figure out what to do– libraries are pretty good at figuring out how to make a lot happen with a little when we need to.)
If you’re able to, consider checking out physical books! They’re a lot cheaper for us to provide, and plus you get to talk to a librarian or staff member while you do so. (Or you can use self-checkout, if you don’t want to talk to anyone. I get it!) If you want to purchase a book that’s not in the library’s catalog– ebook or otherwise– look on the library’s website for a purchase request form, or ask a librarian where to find that form.
And if you’re involved in local politics, advocate for libraries in your city or county’s budget. (If you’re not involved in local politics, consider becoming so! It is imo the biggest bang for your buck in terms of involvement vs outcome you can get, politically.) Contact your representative about state budgets. And if you’re not sure how to get started or who to contact or what meetings to go to– hey, why not ask your local librarian?
