Hi all,
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. It's rather detailed, so to summarize: among best-selling and award wining books studied, digital availability is nearly the same as from library print vendors, license terms are fairly consistent across library vendors, but Big 5 publisher prices are much higher than their print equivalents and than small and indie publisher digital costs.
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 There is additional background on the study and-we think, at least-some interesting unpublished conclusions that do not reflect well on big publishers and further explore the plight of the digital library selector in 2025.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!
Michael
Michael Blackwell
Director, St Mary's County Library
23630 Hayden Farm Lane
Leonardtown, MD 20650
301-475-2151 x5013
Cell phone: 301-904-3048
mblackwell@stmalib.org
