Lending library

“ The lending section will be conducted on principles similar to those governing the adult lending library, with such adaptations as experience suggests to be desirable. Simplicity is the keynote of the work, and the regulations governing the issue of readers’ tickets and the lending of books should be made as easy and unambiguous as possible. ”

“ The ordinary reference library should therefore be revised periodically, obsolete and dead stock should be discarded, and no book should be included because it does not appeal to lending library readers or has been received as a gift for which there seems to be no other depository—these are emphatically books to be excluded. ”

“ Libraries that are called upon for frequent loans are justified in making a moderate charge in connection with every volume lent, sufficient in the long run to cover the administrative expense involved in looking up and sending off volumes asked for. This charge is not to be considered as a payment for the use of the book, but is intended simply to relieve the lending library of an undue burden of expense unavoidably attendant upon the system of lending with some freedom to other libraries. ”

“ Kirkwood relating to the Erection of Lending Libraries in the Highlands.’ The ‘papers’ are probably identical with the unique tract mentioned above, which contains elaborate suggestions and rules for the conduct of a lending library. A dry place was to be chosen; the books to be kept under lock and key. Some may be lent out, but no one to have more than two at a time, and the borrowers must be approved preachers, schoolmasters, and students. Each book to have its price against it in the catalogue, and every borrower to deposit a quarter more than the value, as a security for its safe return. ”

“ Libraries may also limit who they will lend digital copies to as an additional way to limit the overall reach of the copy and therefore the potential market effect. Libraries serve particular communities of users—an academic library primarily serves its students and faculty, a public library serves its local residents—and so the rationale would be that digital lending should be made equivalent to the same group of users who would have access to the physical materials. ”

“ Lending libraries using indicators require a different kind of counter than those which use ledgers or card-charging systems, and reference libraries must have them according to the plan of arrangement followed for the books. A lending library counter where no indicator is used need not be a very formidable affair, but it ought to afford accommodation for at least six persons standing abreast, and have space for a screened desk and a flap giving access to the public side. ”

“ Individuals should not send to Worcester, but the librarian, having exhausted resources at hand, should send for the books, the library agreeing, of course, to make good damage and loss and pay the cost of carriage. An out-of-town librarian does not know the individual users of a library in a smaller town, but the librarian in that town does know his constituency and for whom it is safe to borrow books. Libraries should lend to one another, but the work of lending should be systematic. ”

“ For example, a library might introduce lending limits based on library experience with physical lending. If a physical book could be expected to circulate 2,000 times before it degrades, the library could place the same limit on circulation of the digital copy. For many books, this could pose little practical challenge. Large research libraries hold many books that have circulated very seldom in print, [151] and so for many obscure materials ever hitting a maximum loan threshold may be unlikely (though we recognize, digital availability may itself drive lending) . ”

“ Whatever unnecessarily damages the books tends to damage a library; lending does so, ergo. Again, Whatever deters would-be benefactors from giving books tends to damage a library; lending does so; ergo, and so on and so on. The ‘Remarks’ can be run out into mood and figure with no trouble at all. How is this argument or any part of it vitiated, if I were to say (what I never have said) , that ‘a MS. should exist beautifully’? Let us clench the absurdity: suppose I had been fool enough to say that no book should ever be looked at in the library for more than an hour a day ”

“ The borrowing library is responsible for returning loans promptly and in good condition. The borrowing library should respond quickly to overdue notices and is responsible for paying fees for lost books as levied by the lending library. The library should refuse to request books on interlibrary loan on behalf of borrowers who abuse the privilege. ”

“ The USPTO in its recent white paper declining to recommend development of a broad conception of “digital first sale” stated that that “ [t] o the extent that library lending involves library patrons ‘willing and able to wait their turn for the limited loans and use of library materials,’ [ ] the inefficiencies built into lending processes may avoid crossing the line of competing with the commercial market.” [116] So, while transactional friction may not be necessary for CDL, an implementation that added it could reduce risk for libraries. ”

“ While many libraries make their collections available broadly to many users, user-group considerations may mean that libraries will want to think carefully about issues such as who their core users are and, for example, how lending to partner libraries in local or regional consortia with deeply integrated print collections may work, as opposed to users at libraries with more distant interlibrary loan arrangements. In any case, the aim would be to make collections more accessible for those who would ordinarily, already be entitled to access. ”

“ There is no doubt that the small incomes realized in most public libraries from the niggardly provision made by Parliament is one cause of the efforts made in many cases to increase funds, by imposing fines of varying degrees of severity upon the borrowers from lending libraries. ”

“ The advantage to a student of being able to take a recondite and expensive text-book home with him for comparison with, and as an aid to, his own books is undeniable, and it is the fact that, by co-operation, the citizens of a town can thus procure otherwise unattainable books, which makes the Public Libraries Acts so valuable, and adds force to the plea for placing expensive works within easy reach of the majority of readers. Local circumstances will in most cases modify the conditions under which reference and lending libraries are built up and differentiated. ”

“ In ordinary towns the present aim should be to obtain the largest possible number of general and special works in science and applied science, and to leave the supply of the more expensive, recondite, and valuable but rarely used treatises to a central reservoir library, which may be developed out of the Central Lending Library for Students, perhaps with the aid of the special libraries of the various institutions which represent trades and professions. ”

“ That American librarians are looking toward a fuller development of inter-library loans, and away from a central reference bureau, is the consensus of the recent (1910, March and May) symposium conducted by the Library Journal. Our duty now is, by sympathy, interest and contribution, to forward the work of the Library of Congress and the A. L. A. headquarters, and to make our own lending conditions the most generous in our power. ”

“ Our focus is on these narrow and specialized use by libraries. Again, we limit our analysis to non-commercial, controlled, digital lending by U.S. libraries of digitized copies of print books held in their collections. [46]
In applying fair use, not every factor in the analysis will be highly relevant in every situation. [47] As we will show, for CDL, the first factor, “purpose and character of the use,” and the fourth factor “effect on the potential market” are the most significant. ”

“ When the annual charges for periodicals, fittings, lighting, heating, oversight and proportion of loan are all added together, it will be found that a newsroom costs a very considerable amount, which could be applied to more permanent advantage in a reference or lending library. ”

“ Refusing to issue books on the same day as that on which they are returned to the library. (A common practice in the old-fashioned libraries, worked by means of charging ledgers, but still found in several much more up-to-date libraries. The same craze for tantalizing the public has in a minor degree infected some open access lending libraries which will not re-issue returned books until they have been replaced on their shelves by the assistants.) ”

“ The system we propose maintains the market balance long-recognized by the courts and Congress as between rightsholders and libraries, [10] and makes it possible for libraries to fulfill their “vital function in society” [11] by enabling the lending of books to benefit the general learning, research, and intellectual enrichment of readers by allowing them limited and controlled digital access to materials online. ”

“ The benefit of a reference library cannot be exaggerated, and it must be clear to the meanest capacity that lending and deposit cannot possibly be combined. It is not difficult to damage or destroy the usefulness of the Bodleian, and the Statute on which we are now to vote is the first step downwards. To lend books out of such a library as ours is an act opposed to the teachings of experience, nor can it be said that the course which we are invited to take is one sanctioned by those who are eminent authorities on such a question. ”

“ In properly conducted open access reference libraries, which are liberally and intelligently conducted, a good deal may be said in favour of placing such books there. They will at least be freely accessible without the formality of readers having to make written application, while the advantage of a reference book being always on the premises is not to be overlooked. No harm can result from placing all kinds of expensive text-books in the lending department, and if they are not on loan they are always available for the use of any reference reader who wants them. ”

“ As a general rule it will be found easy and fairly accurate to allow 20 square feet to every borrower estimated to be present at one time, and disregard the provision of stock. In this calculation allowance is made for gangways, stock and readers.
12. Allow nine volumes per foot run in lending library shelving, and eight volumes per foot run in reference library shelving. A 7 foot 6 inch bookcase should give an average of eight shelves per tier in a lending library, and about the same in a reference library, if separate provision is made in wall cases for folio and other large books. ”

“ A library can lend a physical book to a patron through standard circulation or to another library through interlibrary loan. What CDL does do is shift that lending to a new format that opens up access possibilities for readers with disabilities, physical access limitations, research efficiency needs, or other needs for digitally-accessible content.
A CDL system is not a brand-new concept. There are multiple versions of CDL-like systems currently being used in libraries. ”

“ The individual in whose behalf a loan is solicited pays all transportation charges and undertakes to conform to the conditions of use made by the lending library. This library also lends many books to other libraries. Individuals living some distance from Berkeley should request loans through their local libraries. As this library is primarily for the use of the university faculty and students, applications for loans by other libraries should be restricted to books difficult to obtain by purchase and not available in a nearer library. ”

“ The Lending of Reference Books.—Whether or not reference library books should ever be lent away from the building is a question upon which librarians are sharply divided. It is argued that a reference library is a place where a reader has a right to expect every book in stock to be available at all times, and this is a reasonable theory. That reader, however, is a hypothetical person as a rule, and too rigid a policy of refusal has some disadvantages. Experience tells every librarian what books ought not to be lent in ordinary circumstances, if in any ”

“ The third and fourth CDL controls are that libraries should (3) “limit the total number of copies in any format in circulation at any time to the number of physical copies the library lawfully owns (maintain an “owned to loaned” ratio) ,” and (4) “lend each digital version only to a single user at a time just as a physical copy would be loaned.” These controls ensure that libraries lending digital copies don’t get more than what they bargained for. A library that owns a single copy of a book could only lend a single copy out at a time. ”

“ Our interlibrary loan program is based on the premise that lending among libraries for the benefit of individuals in Nassau and Suffolk counties is in the public interest and should be encouraged. It is impossible for any one library to be self-sufficient, and interlibrary borrowing and lending is regarded by the libraries participating in this program as essential to library service. ”