The E Book Problem

Harper Collins, a publisher, has put Overdrive, an ebook purveyor, on notice that it plans to limit the number of times a library can 'check out' an ebook to 26. Apparently Harper Collins calculated that this is the average number of times a real book is read before it is used-up and withdrawn from the library collection. And actually 'limit' is the wrong word. They plan to make the ebook 'self-destruct'.

As you can guess, libraries are not happy about this latest attack on their dwindling budgets. Cory Doctorow has rightly pointed out that "the important thing to recognize is that the perishability of a print book is not a feature that we should seek to replicate in successive media". Read more about what he has to say by clicking HERE.