Freakanomics blog has an interesting posting on the economics of books, publishers, and libraries. Stephen Dubner really poses the question that if public libraries didn’t exist today could one be started without publishers, authors, and media-in-general getting on your case. Dubner points a couple things that most librarians know, libraries foster learning to read and life-long reading. Dubner thinks that with current economic pressures, the “owners” would prevent such a free distribution of ideas but they fail to realize that regardless of what they tried to do, “consumers” would do what suited them best, maybe a black market, or more prevalent individual book sharing, like the system that flourished in the Soviet Union… which essentially would be a public library of sorts. Besides, publishers know that librarians and libraries are their best customers, with some of the most defined marketing channels for books that don’t have a major marketing blitz behind them. As an aside, the best seller lists in the NY Times or other places are mostly recursive functions of marketing and not indicative of the overall quality or quantity. Libraries still buy best sellers but publishers produce a lot more than these few hundred titles per year and need to sell them to someone.
Besides, libraries do exist.
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/07/10/if-public-libraries-didnt-exist-could-you-start-one-today/