S.L. library pays more for e-books than for print

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With e-readers, like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, becoming more popular, the Salt Lake Public Library is supplementing its print collections with 5,253 e-books.

With more than 16,000 checkouts since December 2010, the digital bookshelf seems like a hit, but the problem is the cost.

E-books are purchased through OverDrive Inc., an e-content provider to more than 11,000 libraries. The Salt Lake Library pays $12,000 a year for the OverDrive online checkout service, then pays a fee per title to rent out books to patrons.

Digital copies of new titles purchased from Overdrive tend to be on average about $8 more than a print edition and can jump as high as $75.99 for popular titles.

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