I had a conversation about books with a friend of mine and we came into the subjects of buying books vs borrowing books from a public library. He said that he likes to support the author and prefers to buy the books he reads.

This made me think. The answer is pretty clear when it comes to buying vs downloading a pirate copy, but in the case with libraries it seems incorrect to say that I’m not supporting the author, but I can’t say why.

What do you think?

  • Solesaver@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Obviously buying the book is supporting the author more than checking it out from a library, but of course the author benefits from you checking out their book.

    1. The library bought the book. Patronizing your library demonstrates that the library provides you value, and this impacts the library’s budget and priorities. Nobody checks out books at the library, the library stops buying books.
    2. You checking out the book makes a public record of someone checking out that book. This is a great KPI for the author. The only thing publishers like almost as much as money is sweet, sweet KPIs.
    3. It creates demand. Books that get checked out more get purchased more. If your library only has a few copies for the entire region, rather than shipping them around everywhere, they might buy enough copies for multiple branches. If the waitlist gets too long they might buy more copies. More readers->more wear and tear->more copies.
    4. Popular books get promoted more. Ever asked a librarian for a recommendation? They’re no AI recommendation algorithm, but they see the data. Librarians give out recommendations all the time, and one input to their recommendation is going to be how many other people checked it out. High movement books may find themselves in a display of “most popular books this month”.

    Etc…