The St. Louis County Library system was the first in its region to give its patrons access to eMedia like ebooks and audiobooks. Ten years later, library officials say costs for that content are becoming unsustainable.
In a Jan. 10 email to patrons, the library announced new limits on the number of holds users can make on Libby and Hoopla. The changes are a response to costs; St. Louis County Library is already spending half its collection budget on eMedia content.
“That makes up a huge portion of our budget,” said library Director Kristen Sorth. “We are one of the last libraries in the state that hadn't made some changes like this, and we had some pretty high limits for holds and simultaneous checkouts.”
Part of the problem is the pricing and licensing structure used by these platforms. Although the library pays for these services, it does not own the content outright.
“That means that we have to repurchase eMedia after a certain period of time or a certain number of checkouts,” Sorth explained. “It can be one year or two years. That is so different than the traditional library structure of [buying] a print book … it sits on our shelves and gets checked out by thousands of people, and then when we need a new copy because it's worn and well-loved. Then we just buy it, and it goes back in. This is just a very different structure, and it means that eBooks are more expensive.”
For Hoopla, the library reported monthly usage increased by 169% in the past five years. In its email to patrons this month, the library cited account managers from Hoopla who projected “continued growth in usage and cost to the Library that will become unsustainable if changes are not implemented.”
Under the new rules, Hoopla users will have their monthly checkout limit reduced from 10 to eight items. On Libby, patrons will see their holds reduced from a maximum of 50 to 20.
The library said these changes will impact only 3% of the library’s current Libby users and about 10% of its Hoopla users.
To hear the full conversation with St. Louis County Library Director Kristen Sorth, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
