Thanks a lot, HarperCollins.

Dear HarperCollins –

I understand that you are now limiting the number of times (26) a digital book can circulate from a library.  Nice.  What’s next?  Will you “pull an Amazon” as well and send someone to remove your hardcover titles from our shelves after they circulate 26 times? 

Here’s something to think about.  Libraries provide access to books. To your books.  We’ve been doing it FOREVER.  Have we crimped your style yet?  Have we affected your bottom line?  No.  In fact, libraries do more to promote your titles than you give us credit for.  We may not be able to beat a multi-million dollar ad campaign, but we’re damned important to you.  We feature your titles on lists (online and paper); we blog about your titles; we recommend your titles to book clubs; we display your books on our shelves and in our catalogs...    We HELP you sell your stupid books.

Now, when we’re just starting to embrace a new technology -- when we’re just beginning to get excited about the possibilities this new technology offers to our institutions and our constituencies, you KNOCK US UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH A DAMNED BASEBALL BAT!!!!  

What do you think happens at the library when a HarperCollins title becomes popular?  We buy hardcover copies (lots), large print copies (lots), and audio CD versions (lots).  And now we buy digital format audio copies and ebook copies too.  All told, we buy a buttload of copies of your popular titles in every available format.  Guess what else?  We don’t buy fewer physical copies – we just add more copies in digital formats.  How is this bad?  How does this hurt you and your authors?  You’re selling more to libraries, not less.  (my eyes are rolling around in my head so much right now I’m getting seasick)  Who the HELL are you protecting?  Your investors?  Puh-leeze.

As many copies as we do buy, they are usually not enough to meet demand.  What do you think happens when a waiting list has 100 people on it?  Well, we buy some more copies.  And what do you think happens when people on those waiting lists get tired of waiting?  THEY GO OUT AND BUY YOUR DAMNED BOOK!!!  Even our limited book budgets help you sell your books and you want to make it harder for us???

HC – get your head out of your tightly bound gutter.  Make ebooks library friendly.  You may not miss the sales you don’t get when libraries quit buying your digital titles, and you may not even register a blip in revenue when we cut back drastically on the number of physical copies we purchase from your catalog.  But pay attention to this – when our patrons ask us why we don’t have a certain title or why we don’t have a lot of copies or formats available, we’ll be VERY happy to tell them that HarperCollins is a library-unfriendly publisher and we feel that doing business with HarperCollins is NOT GOOD USE OF THEIR TAX DOLLARS.  We will also give them your contact information that they may also register their displeasure with your electronic publishing practices.  

Librarians may be nice but we are not without influence.