In
mid-July Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited in the US. For
only $9.99 a month, the service gives customers unlimited access to over
600,000 ebooks and audiobooks. It’s been described as a Spotify for books,
letting customers read as many titles as they like every month.
This
sounds like a great service, but some people are worried about the impact on
public libraries. Dino Grandoni of The Huffington Post wrote that people will
choose Amazon over libraries because they will expect Kindle Unlimited to be
faster and more convenient to use, since speed and convenience are two things
Amazon’s proven to be good at” (www.snipca.com/12981).
Lie’s
not wrong. Amazon’s success is global, and if Kindle Unlimited arrives in the
UK (as seems likely should it prove popular in the US), it could damage
Britain's already beleaguered libraries.
Libraries
have had a tough few years since the Government cut funding in 2010. Over 270
libraries have closed down according to the Chartered Institute of Public
Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), while visitor numbers fell by six per cent in
2013. Will even more visitors be tempted to abandon their local library in
favor of Amazon?
Perhaps
surprisingly, some UK librarians think the threat is overstated. Nick
Stopforth, head of digital at the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL), thinks
libraries will always hold a special appeal. “The attraction of public
libraries is that they’re freely available and the content is chosen by trained
staff who have the public in mind,” he said.
I can’t
see a business model that would threaten the public model. It doesn't help
Amazon that so many bestselling and classic books will be unavailable via
Kindle Unlimited. Moreover, readers in the US won’t find hooks from the 'Big
Five’ publishers (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette and
Simon & Schuster) because of copyright disputes. Classic books like Nineteen
Eighty- Four, To Kill a Mockingbird, and In Cold Blood are off limits,
as are six of the top 10 current bestsellers at Waterstones.
With these gaps, it’s clear that Kindle Unlimited has a long way to go to compete
with public libraries.
In
fact, ebooks could be libraries’ hidden weapon, although only if their ebook
lending schemes improve. Currently systems such as OverDrive are
available in around 80 per cent of the UK’s libraries, but book publishers
currently impose restrictions on which titles are available. Libraries will
suffer if people who prefer ebooks can’t find the titles they want, so they
need publishing companies to relax the rules.
So
it seems that libraries have more to worry about than Amazon for the
time being at least. But if Kindle Unlimited does arrive here, the marketing
campaign behind it will be huge. Many people worry that battling Amazon is a
fight our libraries will never win.
