December 10, 2013

“Soaring e-book Demand Strains Central Florida Library Budgets”

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From the Orlando Sentinel:

The number of e-book checkouts in Orange County [Orange County Library System] peaked in January at 61,650, meaning that patrons borrowed 77 percent of that collection [nearly 80,000 items including audiobooks, e-magazines, etc.]. Pepo credits the lending spike to iPads, Kindles, Nooks and other electronic reading devices patrons received during the 2012 holiday season.

[Clip]

Seminole County library-resources manager Denise Tate says patrons borrow more than half of the library’s 6,000-plus e-books every month. David Barnett, services manager at the Osceola County Library System, estimates the library’s e-book collection at nearly 4,000, and more than 75 percent of that collection is borrowed monthly.

[Clip]

In 2009, a year after the Orange County Library System launched its e-book collection, the library’s budget was $5 million. About 8 percent of that budget was dedicated to the purchase of e-books, while 43 percent went toward print books. The 2012 budget was cut to $4.5 million, and the allocation to e-books doubled to 16 percent. The budget’s allowance toward print books dropped minimally to 41 percent.

Read the Complete Article

See Also: New Report Provides In-Depth Review of eBook Borrowing at Five U.S. Public Libraries (March 19, 2013)

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Gary Price About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.
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