NEWS
For Immediate Release
September 14, 2012

Contact: Jazzy Wright

ALA decries Hachette’s 104 percent library e-book price increase

Washington, D.C.— The American Library Association (ALA) denounces Hachette Book Group’s reported decision to raise the price of e-books to the library market starting Oct. 1. ALA President Maureen Sullivan issued the following statement:

“When Hachette announced it was stepping back into the library e-book market this past May with pilots that would bring a selection of its recent best-sellers to millions of library patrons, the ALA welcomed this news. Leaving our meeting with them, we were pleased that they recognized libraries as strong partners—as direct customers and marketers of their titles, as well as integral community institutions that must be supported as a fundamental cornerstone of literacy.

“After these tentative steps forward, we were stunned to learn that Hachette plans to more than triple its prices for e-book sales to libraries starting October 1. Now we must ask, ‘With friends like these…?’

“We are weary of faltering half steps and even more so of publishers that refuse to sell e-book titles to libraries at all. Today I have asked the ALA’s Digital Content & Libraries Working Group to develop more aggressive strategies and approaches for the nation’s library community to meet these challenges.

“Libraries must have the ability to purchase a wide range of digital content at a fair price so that all readers have full access to our world’s creative and cultural resources, especially the many millions who depend on libraries as their only source of reading material.”

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