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A lucky Massachusetts town in the 18th century decided to name itself after Benjamin Franklin and then ask its namesake for a gift. Would the famed writer and statesman send the new town of Franklin a bell for its church? Franklin responded that “sense being preferable to sound,” he would instead send a collection of books for all to share. The gift sparked the formation of the first free public library in the United States—and ignited a movement across the country.
There are myriad reasons for America’s economic success and prosperity, but the free public library has to be on the list.
All this history came to mind on Thursday with the news that one of the great enemies of the public library, publishing scion John Sargent, is leaving the scene. Sargent, whose great grandfather founded Doubleday and whose father also ran the publishing house, is stepping down as CEO of Macmillan, one of today’s “Big Five” publishers that dominate the book market.
Blunt and combative, Sargent was one of the executives at the center of the price-fixing scandal over ebooks a decade ago, but more recently had turned his fire on libraries.
To Sargent, ebook-lending libraries were “cannibalizing sales.” After a few troubling experiments, last year he declared that libraries would be allowed to purchase only one copy each of any new Macmillan ebook for the first eight weeks after it came out. The embargo restriction followed years of the big publishers imposing lending limits and raising prices on ebooks for libraries.
“Libraries are paying publishers, but the value the consumer sees—what comes out of the consumer’s pocket—is zero,” Sargent explained at a large library gathering in January. “There are people saying ‘never buy [an ebook] again, you can get it for free.’”
Many libraries began boycotting Macmillan’s ebooks. “While Macmillan’s e-book embargo aims to squeeze a few more sales out of frustrated library users, it unfairly disadvantages e-book readers who use the library out of need,” Washington state librarian Carmi Parker argued in an op-ed in Publishers Weekly. “Equal access to information regardless of ability to pay is foundational to a democratic society and is why public libraries exist. So, we cannot in good conscience support terms that include such inequity.”
Thankfully, Macmillan relented when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced libraries to close and rely even more on ebook lending. But we are still stuck with the vastly different ways the law treats print books versus digital books that allow for publishers to abuse libraries.
We spend a lot of time in Data Sheet focused on the struggles between big tech companies. Of course, what’s at stake in those fights is usually big for all of us too. But there are important battles going on elsewhere. And the fight to keep public libraries vibrant and alive has got to be one of the most important of all.
Aaron Pressman
