Beginning Friday, November 1, we will no longer purchase new ebooks from Macmillan Publishers. We have also decided not to renew expiring ebook licenses from Macmillan. Information about this decision is available on our website. Please read through the entire article so you are familiar with the changes.
This decision applies only to Macmillan ebooks on Overdrive.
We will continue to purchase Macmillan digital audiobooks, print books, and audiobooks on CD.
Hoopla does not have ebooks from Macmillan and is unaffected by this decision.
The decision applies to the ebooks collection development staff select for our Overdrive collection as well as ebook purchase suggestions from customers using Overdrive. For titles that are not new, we will monitor licenses that are within 15 days of their expiration date. We will weed these titles from our Overdrive collection and cancel customer holds on these titles in Overdrive. Overdrive does not provide a way for us to directly message customers about their account from within the Overdrive website, app, or Libby. We are working on creating communication about purchase requests that will be delivered via email to customers requesting new Macmillan titles.
Review the “Titles Not Available” list located at the end of the FAQ. These are the titles that will be released in November and December 2019. While we will not be purchasing these titles in an ebook format, we will purchase copies of the majority of these titles in print. A number of these titles will also be purchased as digital audiobooks and/or audiobooks on CD.
If you have any questions, please reply to this post. Thank you.
Scarlett Fisher-Herreman
Technical Services Manager
dawn-buttery on said:
If someone should ask why I am assuming this is how to offer the books in the most cost effective way, Is there another reason to give?
Scarlett Fisher-Herreman on said:
If someone asks why, I would state that this is an issue about equity for our ebook readers. Macmillan Publishers stated that they made a business decision in their choice to restrict the number of licenses for new titles available to libraries. We’ve made our own business decision in investing our money with publishers who do not restrict content to libraries. There are 4 other big publishers and dozens of smaller publishers with content on Overdrive. We will invest with them for ebooks. And we will continue to purchase print ebooks, digital audiobooks, and books on CD from Macmillan. Thanks for asking.