MVLC Boycotts New eBooks from Macmillan Publishing

There are almost 780,000 patrons in the towns served by the 36 libraries in the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium (MVLC). Beginning in November, the Macmillan publishing company announced that it would sell only ONE copy of every newly released eBook to each library system across the country. In response, MVLC has followed the lead of the Massachusetts Library Association and the American Library Association and will be boycotting these titles, refusing to purchase a single copy that the vast majority of our patrons would be unable to access.

The move by Macmillan is designed to frustrate library users and force them to purchase eBooks that they have in the past been able to borrow from us. Libraries nationwide have refused to accept this attempt to limit our readers’ access to the books they love and will continue to fight attempts to undermine the whole concept of the free public library. We’ll continue to acquire new titles from other publishers, and this boycott has no impact on print books, audio CDs, and digital audiobooks.

The Chelmsford Public Library continues to offer access to over 50,000 digital titles and over 5 million physical items through MVLC. We appreciate how much you love and support us and we promise that as we use your tax dollars to make purchases from book publishers, we will make sure that we are all treated fairly.

You can read the complete statement from MVLC here. If you would like to contact Macmillan directly, you can email them at elending.feedback@macmillan.com, or consider signing the “eBooks for All” petition found here: https://ebooksforall.org/