Ebooks are convenient and free with your library card! What’s not to like? Well… you might have put some ebooks on hold months ago, and thought you’d get them soon, only to have the holds disappear or suddenly revert to a months-long waiting list. What’s going on?
Let’s talk about ebook pricing.
Publishers don’t treat libraries the same way when it comes to ebooks. You can buy your own copy of an ebook for around $15 (less if it’s self-published, which is a different conversation) and that gives you a license that does not expire. However, libraries can be charged as much as 4 times that amount for an ebook – and those licenses expire! Some publishers make us buy a new copy after 2 years, and other licenses expire after 26 checkouts. This means we can’t buy as many copies of ebooks as we buy of physical books – our money just doesn’t go as far.
How can we make our money go farther?
One option is PPU – a pay-per-use model. This means we don’t have to pay a high upfront cost for a short-term license. We can offer a much larger catalog of ebooks, and we only pay as people check them out. This allows us to have many, many more ebooks in our collection than we would be able to afford otherwise.
Sounds good. What’s the catch?
PPU still comes with some limits. We only have a limited budget each month, and when it’s gone, the entire PPU catalog goes offline until the following month. That includes ebooks you placed on hold. If one of your holds is a PPU title and you expected it to be available on Oct. 7, but our monthly PPU budget was spent by Oct. 4, your hold will be delayed. Each user also has a limit on the number of PPUs they can have checked out at any given time, usually only one or two. If you’re on hold for a PPU, but then you check out other ebooks that happen to also be PPU titles, this will fill your monthly limit and you’ll lose your hold – even if that hold was available.
How to make sure you don’t lose those holds?
Did you get a notice that your hold is available? Check it out RIGHT AWAY, and before you check out any other ebooks that catch your eye. Unfortunately, CloudLibrary does not give us the ability to identify books as PPU or licensed, so to be on the safe side, assume all books are PPU and get your most important titles checked out first.
More about ebooks
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Visit cloudLibrary, opens a new window to check out ebooks and audio ebooks with your library card number and PIN. Read online or download the free cloudLibrary app, opens a new window for iOS, Android or Kindle Fire.
- Number of checkouts at a time: 10
- Checkout period: two weeks
- Late fines: None! eBooks return automatically.
- Number of holds at a time: 10
- Time to pick up a hold when notified: three days
More Ebook Options
Reading Arizona Ebooks, opens a new window: Arizona-themed fiction, nonfiction, teen, and children's titles. A partnership between the Arizona State Library and Baker & Taylor.
Open Library, opens a new window: Over 20 million books, primarily older and out-of-copyright titles, available with a free account from the Internet Archive.
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There are several different ebook providers that work with libraries, including CloudLibrary, OverDrive (the Libby app), and Hoopla. Each provider offers different benefits and CloudLibrary was chosen as the one that best suits Chandler Public Library's needs.
Here's a tip for library power users: many people in the Greater Phoenix area have library cards with multiple libraries, including Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Maricopa County Library District, and others. Each library system chooses its own books - ebooks as well as books in print - so using multiple libraries gets you the widest selection!
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Because our funds for ebooks are limited, some ebooks in the CloudLibrary catalog use pay-per-use (PPU) access. PPU greatly expands what we can offer but it comes with its own limits, sometimes causing holds to be delayed or cancelled. Read more about PPU and tips for using it at this blog post.
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You can read online with a web browser, or use the free CloudLibrary app for iOS, Android, or Amazon Fire devices.
Unfortunately, CloudLibrary ebooks are not compatible with Kindle Paperwhite or other black-and-white Kindle readers. These devices use Amazon's proprietary format, and Amazon has not chosen to release this format to CloudLibrary.
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It's possible that the ebook is available but we haven't purchased it yet. To see if it's available, change your filters to Suggestions for Library. Then you will see a Suggest button to send the suggestion to our ordering department.
Keep in mind that publishers make the decision about whether they work with ebook providers like CloudLibrary and which books they make available. If you search for an ebook and can't find it under Suggestions for Library, it's because the publisher did not make it available to CloudLibrary.
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