The institutional e-lending setup in Scandinavian libraries: logics in play in the eyes of library and policy actors
| Date | 18 April 2024 |
| Pages | 1193-1210 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2023-0265 |
| Published date | 18 April 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Maciej Liguzinski,Nanna Kann-Rasmussen |
The institutional e-lending setup
in Scandinavian libraries:
logics in play in the eyes of library
and policy actors
Maciej Liguzinski
Department of Archivistics, Library and Information Science,
Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway, and
Nanna Kann-Rasmussen
Department of Communication, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen,
Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
Purpose –The article investigates the institutional setup of e-lendingin public libraries in Denmark,Norway
and Sweden.Our point of departure is that e-lendinghas necessitated new librarycollaborations betweenlocal,
regional and national levels, and therefore, institutional e-lending setups have emerged. The study seeks to
providebetter understandingof how the institutional setupsare structured, how governancelogics have shaped
them and whattensions and dynamics become visiblein the key actors’problematisations of these setups.
Design/methodology/approach –The study is situated in the neo-institutional tradition and applies the
institutional logics perspective. The research questions are answered by taking a qualitative approach,
groundedin an extensive interview study with representatives of libraries, publishers and policy actors in three
Scandinavian countries. To provide in-depth insight into e-lending setups, the scope of empirical material is
then limited to accounts the central library and policy actors involved in establishing e-lending.
Findings –The analysis shows that the e-lending setups are both similar (especially when it comes to
financing), and different across Scandinavia, especially when it comes to centralisation and involvement of
librarians in this task. The differences are attributed to the influence of different governance logics (question of
administrative autonomy, collaboration in the field and existing legal and politicalframes), and to what extent
the digital and market logics are incorporated or rejected in the field.
Originality/value –The study provides new insights into the question of how Scandinavian public libraries
face the consequences of the digitalisation of book distribution and consumption by investigating how they
organise their e-lending services. This has not been explored before, notably in a comparative perspective.
Keywords E-lending, Digital book, Public libraries, Institutional logics, Scandinavia, Governance
Paper type Article
1. Introduction
This article argues that the lending of digital books is a new condition for the institutional fieldof
public libraries, as they need to relate to a new lending paradigm, which r elies on both digital and
market logics. In response to this new condition, the libraries have developed new institutional
structures, revealing the governance logic, to meet these challenges and to fulfil the ambition of
offering digital books to patrons. The study aims to analyse the ways that Scandinavianpublic
libraries organise their e-lending in the form of institutional setups and investigate central ac tors’
problematisations of these setups from the institutional logics perspective.
The introduction of e-books and digital audiobooks into public libraries has meant not only
making new formats available for patrons but has also brought about new institutional
The
institutional
e-lending setup
1193
This study is a part of a PhD research project, that was funded by the Norges Forskningsr
ad (The
Research Council of Norway) through the research project Political Dynamics of the Cultural Sector
(POLYCUL), project number 302199.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 21 December 2023
Revised 5 March 2024
Accepted 8 March 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1193-1210
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-12-2023-0265
challenges. As opposed to lending of printed books, where the rightsholder loses control over
further uses once a book is sold, lending a digital book –which is a digital file –involves making
copies of the work (Brennen and Kreiss, 2016). This means that the copyright exception allowing
library lending of printed books does not apply to digital books. As a result, rightsholders use
licensing agreements to grant libraries access to digital books (Band and Butler, 2022;Mezei,
2022), which makes public libraries dependent on publishers for their digital collections. In
practice, the publishers decide on the books’pricing, availability and lending terms by means of
various e-lending models (Giblin and Weatherall, 2015;Perzanowski and Schultz, 2016;
Matulionyte, 2017;Sang, 2017;Whitney and de Castell, 2017). The digital books are delivered to
the libraries by middleman companies, so-called aggregators (Giblin et al.,2019)who function as
intermediaries between the publisher and the library, providing both the content, metadata and,
in most cases, also the technical infrastructure of e-lending, in the form of a server or software for
the patrons.
In other words, e-lending couples the public and commercial spheres together in a new
way. The change of format from printed to digital implies that a large part of the traditional
mission of a library as an institution, which is collecting, disseminating and preserving a
collection of books, falls outside the control of the library itself and remains in the realm of
market forces. A public library, both as an organisation and as an institution, needs to face
these new conditions and relate to actors who operate according to different logics and are
guided by other rationales, such as maximising commercial profit, competition or exclusivity
of content. So far, collaboration and goodwill have characterised the relations between these
two groups of actors, but also conflicts, e.g. in Denmark when the libraries’e-lending platform
was developed (Grøn and Balling, 2016;Worsøe-Schmidt, 2019), or as in the United States
between Big Five publishers who have imposed restrictive licensing policies upon public
libraries (Sisto, 2022).
This article aims to investigate the reaction of Scandinavian public libraries to this new
condition. Public libraries in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are both similar and different.
They are similar regarding national legislations and the institutional expectations (Blomgren
et al., 2020;Hylland et al., 2023). Moreover, they are also part of both regional and national
library sectors, where they have traditionally cooperated around issues such as logistics,
interlibrary loans or competence development (Kann-Christensen, 2011;Widdersheim et al.,
2021). However, public libraries in Scandinavia are also different in that they are funded and
driven by municipalities, differing in size and resources (Rydbeck, 2022). Being anchored in a
political and economic framework of local policies implies that the libraries are related to
other domains, e.g. schools and social services (Michnik, 2014). Consequently, different
municipalities may allocate different levels of economic resources to libraries and may have
varying political ambitions regarding the role that the library should play within the local
community. The point of departure for this study is a supposition that single municipal public
libraries would have difficulties in settling and sustaining the e-lending solutions, as these
involve talks with publishers and aggregators. In consequence, e-lending necessitates new
library collaborations between local, regional and national levels, and therefore, new
institutional e-lending setups emerge.
In the following study, we investigate three research questions:
RQ1. How are the institutional e-lending setups in Scandinavia structured, and what
characterises them?
RQ2. How have governance logics shaped the different setups, according to the accounts
of central actors?
RQ3. What tensions and dynamics become visible in the actors’accounts of the
institutional e-lending setups?
JD
80,6
1194
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