Our mayor is doing such a good job of promoting our libraries!

I thank you all, too. I wouldn't have gotten to writing and letting people read what I wrote, without all of you writers and fellow readers.

(Here is where I say I just googled a lot of stuff to double check things, so if you know more about this than me please fact check this answer and let me know! I’ll edit and update accordingly)

Short version is that while book pirates are Not Good, publishing houses can also be Pretty Shitty about things.

So when the library (or you!) buy any digital copy of a book/song/movie, you’re not actually buying the thing. You’re buying a license to the thing. The publisher still owns the original copy and can do whatever they want with your license, such as taking the thing away and not refunding you.

Here’s the part where I remind you that publishing houses and writers, though coexisting, are 2 different entities. Writers generally love libraries. Publishing houses...less so.

Publishing houses want to sell books, and libraries, to them, are taking away sales. This is especially true in a post-Amazon world (but that’s another rant for another time). Their first move is to not let libraries even access certain ebooks. Their second move is to charge libraries more for ebooks than other customers. Their third move is to limit the number of licenses of an ebook the library has access to, thus limiting the number of ebooks the library can lend to its patrons. This forces libraries to spend more money to access more copies.

Sometimes, to be extra shitty, the publishing houses will even limit the number of times an ebook can be checked out before the library has to repurchase a license. Let’s say 50 for an example. That means once it’s been checked out 50 times, the library functionally rebuys the book. So by letting it only be checked out by 3 readers at a time, that license goes much farther than 50 readers all at once.

But please don’t let this deter you from checking out ebooks, and checking them out multiple times! This is just why libraries put a cap on ebooks out at one time, so that they can make the license go as far as possible.

Things are changing, so that’s good. Ebooks (and digital media) are still kind of in their wild-wild-west phase. Once copywright laws catch up, a lot of this will either get better or worse.

Because I have zero interest in minimalism, but when the pandemic first hit and nobody could get liquid handsoap or rubbing alcohol for love or money for weeks/months, I threw open the cupboards of both my bathrooms, under the kitchen sink, the laundry room, and the linen closet, and chucked anything useful and/or impossible to find into a laundry basket to take inventory. And it. Um. It wasn't pretty. I think I turned up well over a dozen bottles of liquid soap and at least ten unused bar soaps. Not counting dish soap and body wash and such. Because I'm a fucking mess of executive dysfunction and overpreparedness.

That being said, not having to buy hand soap, cleaning products, etc during a literal pandemic definitely hella sparks joy. I'm just... gonna try and get things neatened up a teeeeeeeny bit, and make sure I actually use up all the excess shit I have lying around before I buy anything else.