Canada: Ottawa Public Library Wants Readers to Buy Books Through Library Website

From Metroland Media/YourOttawaRegion.com:

The Ottawa Public Library wants to become the second library in Canada to let people buy – not just borrow – e-books.
On Feb. 11, the library board endorsed a plan to partner with an e-book publisher to put a purchase button for e-books on the library’s website catalogue. It’s a way for the library to earn revenue since the library would get a percentage of each sale that started with the library’s website, which currently gets about 950,000 visits per month.
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[The] Library must still negotiate an agreement with publishers and vendors, so the amount of potential revenue is unknown. The library would likely receive between three and four per cent of sales that originate with customers clicking through from biblioottawalibrary.ca. That’s a firm number set by publishers, but it didn’t impress some board members.
“We’re acting as a sales agent. We’re direct advertisers,” said Kanata North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson, who sits on the board. “Four or five per cent is very low.”

The article points out that the Toronto Public Library  will launch a “Buy Now”  program soon.

Toronto will receive five per cent from sales of both print and e-books from Indigo that originate through the Toronto library’s online catalogue.

Read the Complete Article
See Also: More Details About the Plan.
This Document was Part of the agenda for the Feb. 11, 2013 OPL Board Meeting.

Addition of a Purchase Button From the Ottawa Public Library Catalogue by

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Libraries, News, Public Libraries, Publishing