The Problem with Free Library Cards and Libby Hacks

0:00 finding a new library card to add is a ton of fun and I'm very guilty of that myself anytime one of my library cards does not have something available Broward County does if it asks you for your residential address in that City Google that City and the word Sheron and use that Sheron hotel's address as your residential address I am trying to share the love here are funded by taxpayer dollars and I don't want to overwhelm the system to overwhelm the system overwhelm the system do we really support libraries because a lot of you aren't acting like it if you read and spend any amount of time in the online book Community then chances are you're aware of the app liby which connects to your local library and offers ebooks audiobooks and magazines to read in app or on your Kindle simply

0:47 plug in your library card and you can carry your library's Digital Collection in the palm of your hand launched by a company called overdrive in 2017 the Libya app was popular from the get-go but it really took off in 2020 because it offered readers an easy way to access their library from the comfort and safety of their homes at the same time several libraries across the country started offering free non-residential library cards meaning that anyone in the US or the world could sign up online to access that library's digital catalog a few of these libraries were Broward County in Florida Parris County in Texas and Las Vegas in Nevada their mission was simply to help as many people as possible who could no longer access their libraries due to the [Music]

1:33 pandemic everything was well and good and hunky dory until word got out about these cards online and then their systems became flooded with non-resident users was it really the case that all tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of these new digital card holders were truly unable to access any library in their own areas not exactly these free cards were so enticing because Libby allows users to load multiple Cards into their app at once meaning they can access multiple collections all in the app and that cuts down weight times and of course grows how many books they can access so if it's free and you don't need to live in the area well why wouldn't you take up a library on that offer I mean more books are always better right as readers

2:18 across the world collect these free cards the weight times at these libraries increased dramatically forcing them to add limitations expiration dates on the cards or even cut off the access entirely as I'm sure you can imagine the internet was none too pleased with this decision in response netizens began Trolling YouTube Rea and Tik Tok for more free cards and when those searches were not fruitful they turned to Simply lying about their residency according to my research the height of the free non-resident card use was approximately through 2022 into early 2023 and now in mid 2024 most of the original libraries who offered the free cards have cut out their programs but the demand for them has not gone down instead readers have

3:05 turned to more unorthodox means for example I'm going to read you a few comments from the Libby subreddit from a thread called I cheat I use addresses I find on Google for big cities with ebook libraries that give the card via email so I could have more of a selection I use Zillow laughing emoji I just look up colleges in the area another laughing emoji I use my name followed by Pizzeria for example Danny's Pizza there's a Danny's Pizza in every major city so I just use that for my library card you know I will give Danny and his fictitious Pizzeria points for creativity so you saw the thumbnail for this video and you might be wondering well is using a fake address on a library card really stealing yes in my

3:50 opinion it is and I will tell you why in order to do that we need to talk about [Music] money Publishers don't sell e books directly to libraries rather they sell digital distribution rights to thirdparty vendors such as overdrive who then sell those rights to the libraries this is true for Kindle and other ebook markets as well in this system no one truly owns an ebook we're simply accessing them it's not free for libraries to partner with overdrive and overdrive gets the majority of its earnings by marking up the price of the digital license when they're selling them to the libraries in turn the libraries are using taxpayer dollars to buy those licenses libraries don't buy

4:37 the ebook license just once oh no no no that would be too simple they have to renew the license if they want to keep offering it to patrons libraries do have various licensing options available for example there are Perpetual use licenses which are best for say Classics that are going to be checked out regularly for a long time there are short-term licenses that are best for very popular new releases that are going to be checked out a lot right now but may lose steam in a few more years finally there are payper use licenses which are usually reserved for books that have a sudden surge in popularity there are no wait times for the readers but these licenses are the most expensive for the libraries now if you think ebook licensing itself is silly and complicated prepare yourself for the pricing to illustrate

5:24 that simply if you spend $10 on an ebook through Kindle the library is going to spend $35 for a single license of the exact same ebook and that's not counting how many times it's going to be renewed according to the same librarian's research 64% of ebooks cost more than $50 for a library but zero are that expensive for consumers I also found a great article from The New Yorker about ebook pricing and they gave a real world example I'm going to read out to you in 2020 the New York Public Library purchased a Promised Land by Barack Obama for 310 Perpetual licenses cost $95 a piece totaled $ 29,42 they also bought 39 one and

6:11 twoyear licenses for a total of$ 22,527 62 for all of their licenses for this single book and that equates to approximately 3,000 copies of the consumer ebook that's about $17.30 for you 95 for your library so if you're sitting there and you're thinking that doesn't make much sense you're entirely correct it does not make much sense because ebooks aren't physical the usual means of buying a copy of a book and lending it out don't apply Publishers can charge outrageous prices and renewal fees on ebooks if they want

6:57 to and because they can they do but real quick if you're enjoying this chat so far or would like more discussions on lesser known issues within the book Community do consider hitting that subscribe button this is thought Couture I'm Kelsey Joe and I publish new videos almost every week on book recommendations book reviews and going forward more bookish commentary now that you have the necessary context let's Circle back libraries are funded in part by taxpayer dollars which are then used to purchase those overpriced ebooks you don't pay pay taxes in an area and you're using their books then you are taking book access from the people who are paying for them they're funding your reading here are a few comments about this uh one is from YouTube one is from

7:42 Reddit as an actual Broward County resident who has to wait weeks for books this really sucks they need to at least charge a nominal fee like Orange County we don't even have any reciprocal libraries I live in Broward and have had it set up on my Lippy for ages having no idea it was open to literally anyone no wonder some of the wait times are 36 plus weeks for the damn books I want Harris county is my local library no wonder I'm often 235 on the hold list to get the book for my book club if this Behavior continues we end up in a vicious cycle demand for digital books increases therefore the wait time increases therefore patrons are unhappy with the wait time and they don't support their local library the lack of support leads to decreases in Government

8:27 funding libraries can't buy new ebooks or can't renew the ones they have therefore the wait time increases and patrons are unhappy put simply inconvenienced readers are going to look to other libraries whether they access them ethically or not the cycle continues and everyone loses speaking of Ethics quick side note I have seen several users of the free non-residential cards whether they're lying or not claim that the The increased circulation that they are putting into that Library System means that the government is going to increase their funding for it basically even though they don't pay taxes there just the fact that they're helping move books shows the government that this Library deserves more funding because it's being

9:14 used in my research I couldn't find any info to suggest that this idea is true however I didn't see anything also that said it wasn't true and while it does makes sense that the government's not going to fund a totally unused facility most money does come from the taxpayers so I don't think the correlation is as direct and significant as these people think in other words signing up without contributing financially in any way of your own probably outweighs whatever little bit of benefit doing so might have but if there happen to be any Librarians watching this who might have more info on this more inside details do let me know down below now I understand that many readers who are signing up for these free cards or forging their info are doing so because the libraries in

10:00 their own areas might be underfunded or underdeveloped and therefore they don't have a particularly large collection or have very long wait times the problem is not really wanting to access other Library systems the problem is doing so unethically and there are ethical ways the one I want to focus on right now are legitimate non-resident cards most libraries do offer non-resident cards however you have to pay for them for all the reasons we just discussed if the local taxpayers are paying to access the library collection you as an outsider have to contribute financially too most non-resident cards that I came across in my research cost around $25 to $50 and

10:45 that's about the price of two maybe three hard cover books of course personal budgets vary but I do think that's a pretty reasonable fee especially if you were already planning on spending that much money on books you after to loans it's going to pay for itself so there you have it if you want access to a larger Library you just pay for non-resident card problem solved right no because no one wants to do that no one online anyway it's a classic case of having your cake and eating it too you want access to bigger and better libraries you're offered a way to do so but that's not good enough because it's not free and so we come to the real Crux of this issue overc consumption [Music] the reason I wanted to discuss this

11:30 today is not only to remind everyone that stealing is bad but more importantly because the free library card situation illuminates how overc consumption works in the book Community which is different from other Industries we want to believe that overc consumption is not really a huge issue among readers and there is some truth to that in the sense that the publishing industry will never be able to create as much physical waste as say the fast fashion industry I mean we can recycle paper we cannot recycle polyester plus readers do typically hold on to books for a long time they have no expiration date they can be reread and they're not designed to be disposable although the

12:16 disposability of literature is a whole other thing that's that's going to be a different video but the attitude of overconsumption still exists which the free library card debacle proves for the most part the reader who are looking for these free cards and who are willing to lie to get them are not doing so because they truly lack all access to books it's just that what they have isn't good enough the most common complaint I came across are long way times and I I do get it I understand the frustration of finding a new book you're really excited about you pull it up on Libby and realize that there's a 3mon wait time it's disappointing it's annoying and how do you know you're even going to want to read this 3 months from now but you're

13:02 not barred from reading the book you just can't read it right now as I tell my dog every night when I don't fill her food bowl fast enough for her patience is a virtue and you're lucky you're cute here are a few more comments from Reddit to illustrate what I'm talking about some of us don't have money to spend on a library card I have a shitty library in my area and I'm poor I don't have any extra money to spend on non-essential stuff I love to read so I'm looking for free libraries that'll allow me to expand my reading options but I guess I'll just not read what I want to since I don't have the money the response to that is I find it's always worth the wait when the book becomes available after a while it's like a surprise like finding a dollar in your pocket you can search

13:50 similar authors and genres what's available right away I have certain narrators that I like that I'll search by I believe reading should be free access to all but support paying small fees to keep libraries staying alive that is an unfortunate situation the original commenter had and I do sympathize however no one is saying that you're not allowed to read because you're poor what we're saying is that being poor doesn't give you the right to lie and add strain to a different Library when we're talking about a government funded community resource like the library accessing those resources unethically only hurts your community your years and yourself in the long run because it's not some billionaire CEO who's going to miss out on a couple dollars it's people around

14:37 you people you know and like people just like you who are going to feel the effects of this and not all of this overc consumption comes out of need however plenty of it comes from greed by virtue of something being free people are going to take it whether they really need it or not that's just like human nature so on top of the readers who are frustrated by by their underwhelming Library systems there are readers who are collecting these cards just because they can case in point from Reddit I also have used Zillow at one point I collected more than 30 Library digital cards between three I paid for those in my state and other digital cards I'm down to 28 now but it's handy when you want to put a book that's in high demand with long waight lists and

15:24 can put it on hold in multiple locations to see where you can get it sooner no matter matter how much you read no one needs 30 or 28 library cards you're never going to read that much I'm willing to bet that the three this person paid for plus their local cards are more than enough I have six cards in my Libby uh three in my libraries like local Consortium and then three that New York state offers to Residents uh more on those tips in a moment but those six often feel like too many like it's an over overwhelming number of books it's this idea that more is always better and whatever I have is not enough that is the definition of overc consumption even if this person is not like physically

16:11 hoarding books although you could probably argue that they are in a sense so this one person has infiltrated 20 plus Library systems to the detriment of the people those systems were intended to serve what all of this boils down to is entitlement which I think is a feature of over consumption that's unique to the book World here's a comment under a YouTube video from the Creator Dylan can readed whose very popular videos on these free cards was in the uh intro my hero too bad it takes taxpayer dollars when all books should be free to borrow for everyone keep them coming this comment fascinates me because it shows a simultaneous fetishization of books and a devaluation

16:58 of the labor that goes into producing them we can all agree that reading is good for us you know knowledge is power and that critical thinking and literacy are crucial skills that should be taught to everyone no one here is arguing that books shouldn't be accessible books are still objects though very powerful objects that take time and money to produce and as such they can't be distributed freely so I want to know like how does this commenter propose we com compensate the writers the editors the book cover designers the agents the marketing teams the publishing companies everyone else who contributed to creating the book that they want they do specify to borrow so maybe they have no

17:44 problem with selling books in some capacity but even still the logic doesn't hold without taxpayer dollars the library that you'd borrow from couldn't operate they couldn't pay their staff they couldn't keep the lights on let's move back to to Reddit real quick for a final comment this commenter is quoting the sunny Vil Public Library website instant access online cards using a fictitious residence non-residential address or an address outside of California will be deleted sad face and then the moderator of the liby sub uh responds simply with an angry face emoji this Library clearly had an issue with non-residents taking advantage of their system enough so to delete accounts with fictitious

18:30 information and that is entirely within their right to do this may sound harsh uh but if you're an adult it really shouldn't you are not entitled to things that are not yours and were not intended for you you are not entitled to other people's resources just because you want them and just because your beliefs and morals say you should have them and to be perfectly clear most readers are not doing this it is absolutely a minority although a local minority but it is enough people that the library systems are feeling the ramifications of the flood of a non-resident non-contributing card holders I mean so much so that the sunny Veil Library had to State explicitly that lying is unacceptable and I'm willing to bet

19:15 they're not the only one who've had to say that no they were not this is a screenshot from rdit that was posted the day after I filmed this video that sums up the whole situation perfectly uh this is quoting the Bartholomew County public Public Library I'll read you a little bit of it you have been identified as a library digital card holder living outside of our surface area our limited Library budget comes from local taxpayer funds digital resource usage costs us money so we need to use it on Library patrons in our service area our digital resarch resource providers have the same expectation your account has been removed from our system the YouTube and Tik Tok videos I included in the opening have over 1 million views combined and that's not including how many people

20:01 have viewed the Reddit forums that I've quoted or any of the other many videos on this topic that I just didn't include the handful of libraries that offer these free cards were never set up to handle that much interest which is why almost all of them have ended their programs at this point if even a portion of that original million is now lying to retain access to these cards that's still too many also I probably should have stated this earlier but this video is not a call out to those creators that I included in the opening I do believe absolutely that their intentions were good I just think they are [Music] misguided so as I mentioned earlier there are several ethical ways of accessing different Library systems from your own so we already discussed the

20:48 paid non-resident cards and there are tons of libraries across the US that offer them so I will leave a couple links in the description of some websites that have lists of every Library where you can buy a non-resident card and their price so option number two if your local library is lackluster you may have libraries in your state that offer free cards to residents of that state for example I'm in New York state and I have my City's library card but just by virtue of being a New York state resident I'm allowed free access to the New York Public Library the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library all New York State residents are allowed cards from those libraries you do not have to live in New York City and you don't have to go in

21:35 physically to get the card you can do it all online it took me 30 seconds each so my fellow New Yorkers do take note of that this blew my mind when I heard that I could get these cards I do believe uh the Boston Public Library offers cards to all residents of Massachusetts and a few libraries in California do the same as well and again I'll leave more links in the description so you can look for the libraries in your state option number three I actually just learned about this while researching for this video but some libraries have partner libraries or reciprocal libraries it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like your library may be in a partnership with other local libraries meaning that by having a card at one of them you're

22:20 allowed to get cards at the others I discovered that my local library has two partners and I basically tripled my cards reach now maybe it was just my library but it was a little bit tricky to find this specific partnership information on their website so I would recommend just going to your library or maybe giving them a call chatting with the librarian and asking what the partnership situation is I'm sure they'd be happy to help you and you never know how much further your card could go and finally there are such a thing as online libraries these are libraries that do not have a physical collection they are only digital and they are available to everyone in the country so I know of two that offer a Libby app connection uh the first is the queer Liberation library

23:05 that offers all sorts of literature and resources on queer life culture and history and then there's the Japan Foundation which is available in Canada as well uh that has a digital collection of all things Japanese language literature culture cooking so if that's something you're interested in definitely check those two out now there are way more Online Library options that just don't have access to liby in fact my video next week is going to go through all different ways to access books online for free and also offline because there are some physical book options that I want to share it's going to be a real fun one so do stick around hit that follow button so you don't miss [Music] that in a perfect world every reader

23:52 would have free access to every book they wanted to read whenever they wanted to read it that would be literary Utopia unfortunately that's not the world we're living in but the library system is the closest thing we have to that perfect world even the most underfunded under stocked library in the country is part of the most egalitarian and accessible institutions we have because really what other public space can you spend an entire day in that provides a reading material education career resources Community groups children's programs and a whole host of other resources for free nowhere there is nowhere else when we're faced with lackluster libraries and are

24:39 feeling frustrated about it the answer is not to turn our back on that library and go elsewhere the answer is to support the library in any way we can maybe you're able to donate or participate in fundraisers but financial support is not the only way can you volunteer your time in some some way can you write letters to your local legislators even your local papers in support of the library and most importantly of course you can vote for public officials who want to increase Library budgets or at the very least don't want to decrease them once again I'm going to leave some links in the Box down below to some websites that have more ideas and more actionable steps you can take today to support libraries across the country I know this is going

25:26 to sound cheesy but like bear with me for for a moment no matter who you are no matter where you are there is something you can do to help and you do have the power to make a change and we will all be better off for it well that is it for me today do let me know in the comments below do you use Lippy do you have any other reading apps you enjoy were you aware of this free library card lying to get library cards situation what are your thoughts on it also if you have any other ideas of topics about uh overc consumption in the book space do let me know this is something I would like to explore more because I think about it all the time as always thank you so so very much for watching I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and I will see you in the next one

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