The ‘online’ Culture library multiplies loans by 25 | Culture



The sale of the digital book has stagnated, but digital reading is at full capacity. There is a fishing ground of readers that grows without remedy every year and the figures that they handle in the Ministry of Culture are surprising. In 2014, the eBiblio platform appeared and has increased from 45,081 loans five years ago to 1,015,701 in 2018. In the last year alone, loans have increased 101.4%. It is the free online loan service for digital content (books, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines) that, despite the limited publicity and dissemination that this platform has given to the Ministry of Culture, has become the reference point of what we could call displaced readings.

Is an invisible success, because as indicated by Culture “there is no annual budget allocated for the promotion of the service”. They prefer to hold the Autonomous Communities responsible for this task, since it is a service executed by their public libraries. At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, the Ministry invested 19,000 euros in a digital communication campaign on social networks and 26,000 euros in posters and bookmarks distributed by the State public libraries.

Still the figures of total users they have almost doubled: from 48,037, in 2015, to 85,227 last year (they are 29,602 more than the previous year). Among Madrid users eBiblio has multiplied its loans by 25, among Murcia by 30 and Andalusians by more than ten. This online library is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It is enough to have an internet connection and a public library card of the 18 communities participating in the project (the Basque Country has its own service, eLiburutegia).

No hacking

At this time it has been shown that free downloading in the digital library has been essential for raising awareness against piracy, thanks to the increase in supply: if in 2015 the Ministry of Culture paid publishers for 240,157 licenses, in 2018, 493,966 licenses were contracted. The Ministry of Culture assures EL PAÍS that "the improvement in access and visibility of the legal offer of content has contributed to the reduction of the consumption of cultural products illegally". They argue that the digital lending of books through eBiblio has many advantages that make digital reading "easy and enjoyable, as well as legal."

They count from the portfolio of José Guirao that according to the experience collected, as the platform is used “its comfort of use is appreciated and it is realized that it is not necessary to use other routes, much less the illegal ones”. However, the biggest failure of the digital library is its incompatibility with Amazon: eBiblio cannot be read from a Kindle, because the multinational does not want to make its files compatible. “That's why eBiblio is triumphing on mobile, not on ereaders", says Pedro Valverde, head of the Book and Reading Unit of the Community of Madrid. When the platform started nobody read on the phone and now the ereader It has become an invention similar to HSV or Betamax: one day flower.

Ana is a user of the platform and prefers not to reveal her last name. You think the best thing is your comfort, although download the app It is not simple. She reads a lot on paper, but on the way to work she prefers to use the tablet. "The novelties of narrative are usually much earlier in eBiblio than in libraries. The non-fiction fund is not as well served," he says. Despite this, according to the data of the Federation of Publishers Guild of Spain, digital sales are higher in nonfiction than in fiction. Another downside is that the fund in eBiblio is very scarce, due to the acquisition of licenses.

However, the investment in the purchase of licenses has also grown year after year, after a pleasing start and a dramatic fall. The Ministry of Culture - with José Ignacio Wert and José María Lassalle in charge - launched the initiative with an investment in the purchase of licenses (number of copies per title) of 967,495 euros. And the following year they cut it to less than half: 407,589 euros. The drastic reduction affected the number of titles and licenses, and the reason was used to justify the absence of titles in any of the official languages: until 2017, not a single title was acquired in Euskera, Catalan or Galician.

All languages

Bilingualism was below zero, despite the constitutional mandate to protect and promote all the languages ​​of the country. In 2017, 52 titles and 1,111 licenses were acquired in Catalan, 4 titles and 611 licenses in Basque and 20 titles and 493 licenses in Galician. "The difference in the proportion of purchases responds to the reality of the publishing industry," they point out from Culture. Catalonia is the community with the highest number of active users of the State digital library, with 25,417 people a year. Madrid has 21,779 users and Andalusia, in third place, with 7,977 users.

Sources from the Ministry of Culture report that in 2016 the investment began to grow and reached 648,907 euros. In 2017 they were 777,357 euros. The economic bet accounts, because in 2018 eBiblio made available to users a collection of 20,092 different titles, which meant an increase of 6,853 titles (52% more) compared to the previous year and the multiplication of requests for loan. Three years earlier, the offer was limited to only 4,098 titles. That is why users did not reach 50,000. Today they are almost 90,000.

Pedro Valverde believes that the eBiblio offer tempers the illegal use of copyright, especially because it enriches the offer. “There are digital reading clubs and they are very successful. The author chat with the readers, ”he says. Valverde says that when the idea started there were librarians in fear that the buildings would empty, but that has not happened because it is another service. “Libraries must go outside libraries to look for readers. They are new ways to connect with users. With all my love, I am more in favor of this than filling the reading rooms with Selectivity students. EBiblio is not going to empty libraries, it will give another way to meet the reader, ”he adds.

License to read

The growth of digital reading in these years confirms what specialists in the library sector said five years ago: the electronic book is the challenge in which libraries play the future. Then there were librarians who demanded more sensitivity and commitment to publishers with the digital book (they asked to include a greater number of novelties in this format). The sector still distrusted the free online model. Both in Catalonia and Madrid have made a very large investment in licenses.

The selection of eBiblio contents is “a cooperative process”, indicate from Cultura, in which library professionals with profiles of collection management in their respective Autonomous Communities participate. "The communities receive, from the Ministry, a wide range of titles and professionals select according to interest, quality, suitability for the user, etc.", explain the sources consulted. This system greatly facilitates the purchase of licenses in the Autonomous Communities, suffocated by the lack of investment in the purchase of the paper book.

Among the data provided, the increase, month by month, of active users is striking. However, the strongest reading peak is December, similar to August. In both months, the loans - which can be used in streaming and on download - they shoot above 100,000. The most borrowed title of 2018 was The captain's daughters (Planet), by María Dueñas. Behind, Homeland (Tusquets), by Fernando Aramburu; Dr. García's patients (Tusquets), from Almudena Grandes; The invisible fire (Planet), by Javier Sierra; and fifth, I will give you all this (Planet), by Dolores Redondo. Overwhelming presence of Planet in front of Penguin Random House. The maid's tale (Salamander), by Margaret Atwood, is the sixth most borrowed book. In the category of newspapers and magazines, El País occupies the first place, followed by Semana, ABC, Lecturas and El Jueves.

. (tagsToTranslate) library (t) culture (t) multiply (t) 25 (t) loan (t) service (t) spend (t) 45,000 (t) one million (t) download (t) four (t) year



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