Japan Libraries: 'stop lending"!

[Taro Toporific]

Wanna pay rental fee to your J-library?

Japan's Book Battle
Japanese publishers say they are getting clobbered by an unlikely upstart: the local public library. It was not until the 1970s that public libraries first appeared in Japan, and while still relatively rare..
....publishers and authors began looking for ways to get some of their money back. Now the publishers are asking libraries not to lend out popular new titles for a period of six months, and for authors to get paid for the books the libraries loan. ---Newsweek, Feb. 3 issue
I use the Yokohama library sytem to reserve newly published English books. I just review the monthly print-out of new acquistions and fill out a slip for an inter-library loan...which beats the hell out of paying 3,500yen for new hardback title.

[Big Booger]

that is so stupid. Usually libraries only have 1-10 copies of books to begin with and if it is popular it is usually out.. so you have to go buy one anyway.

Book companies and publishers in Japan are lame.
BB

[ramchop]

that is so stupid. Usually libraries only have 1-10 copies of books to begin with and if it is popular it is usually out.. so you have to go buy one anyway.

Book companies and publishers in Japan are lame.
BB

Isn't it common practice to have a charge attached to polpular new releases? 250 yen/week in NZ, on a par with videos. It means that the most popular newest books are sometimes available, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying them. Those sorts of books aren't the type you'd want to read more than once anyway. I'm sure the money doesn't go to the publishers though.

[Taro Toporific]

that is so stupid. Usually libraries only have 1-10 copies of books to begin with and if it is popular it is usually out.. so you have to go buy one anyway.

Use your CHARISMA MAN gaijin power!

For heavens sake, these are Japanese female librarians you're talking to: you're the most exciting thing that happens in their day. The ladies always email or fax the list of new English acquisions before the public every sees it.

[Steve Bildermann]

[Taro Toporific]

[Taro Toporific]

Gee, I wonder if this is ever gonna hit the US. I've heard that in Euroland libraries have to pay a yearly royality, sheeeeee-it
Libraries told 'stop lending'
Yomiuri Shimbun Nov 15
Authors and public library officials recently discussed the practice of libraries lending out large numbers of newly published books, including best-sellers, to find a way to coexist....

[cstaylor]

[i]Gee, I wonder if this is ever gonna hit the US.

No way, that'd be messing with the Founding Fathers:

Ben Franklin engaged in many public projects. In 1731 he founded what was probably the first public library in America, chartered in 1742 as the Philadelphia Library.