TIL I learned about Alexandre Vattemare, who got kicked out of med school because he kept making the corpses talk, became internationally famous as a ventriloquist, and then used his fortune to invent interlibrary loan. AMONG OTHER THINGS. 📚 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...

I've purchased digital content for my library for 13 years and have watched the prices skyrocket over that time. I max out my budget every year and since 2020 I've abandoned hope of ever making a real dent in our holds list which continues to climb.

Washington Digital Library Consortium found that since 2023, in Overdrive:

HarperCollins eAudio prices are up 8%; eBooks up 15%

Hachette eAudio is up 20%; eBooks up 4%

Mcmillan eAudio is steady; eBooks up 20%

This isn't sustainable.

#LibraryLife 📚

www.readersfirst.org/news/2024/8/...

Although ebooks are marvellously convenient for patrons, libraries are charged extortionate amounts for a licence which expires after a couple of years, for a book usually artificially limited to one reader at a time. And if too many people read the ebook it “wears out” and you have to buy it again.