A little over 6 weeks ago the Big 6 publisher HarperCollins announced that it would no longer allow library eBooks to be checked out indefinitely. Today it looks like HC might be reconsidering some details.

Josh Marwell, President of Sales at HC, was at a conference yesterday. He spoke at length on the possible change in policy. “Is 26 set in stone? No. It’s our number for now, but we want to hear back. Immediately. Honestly, it doesn’t make sense that one size fits all. We consider it a work in progress. But this is the number that we have now,” he said. “We certainly expected a variety of responses, and we knew that there would be a lot of people that had issues.”

One common response to HC’s new restrictions was a general boycott of eBooks published by HarperCollins. This first started as a simple financial calculation on the part of libraries, but it has since grown into a popular movement. It’s spread beyond libraries to the general public. That’s great, because it looks like the outcry has gotten the attention of HC.

Apparently no one at HarperCollins realized quite how outraged everyone would get over the new restriction. “I think what was surprising was the intensity and how widespread it was. There were a lot of people who are not carrying eBooks now who entered into the fray,” Josh said.

via Library Journal

Update: The title of this post and part of one sentence were edited because we feel they did not accurately describe HC’s position.

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