Both chambers of Maryland’s legislature passed the bill unanimously; the bill will become law without Governor Hogan’s signature. The new law will further Maryland’s policy of ensuring more effective and economical services to all library users.
Source: ARL
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The new state law will require any publisher offering an e-book to the public in Maryland to make that title available to a public library on reasonable terms, enabling libraries to license more books. The Maryland public libraries expect that the legislation will cause publishers to bring down the prices they charge libraries for e-books, although some price discrimination likely will remain. Additionally, the legislation will result in Maryland public libraries obtaining access to titles now available only to consumers.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
