Connecticut libraries face rising e‑book costs as new law remains inactive

By Julia Caso­la | Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut
May 27, 2026

Con­necti­cut libraries are fac­ing grow­ing finan­cial pres­sure as demand for e‑books and audio­books surges, with librar­i­ans say­ing they are pay­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er prices for dig­i­tal mate­ri­als they don’t per­ma­nent­ly own. 

Con­necti­cut libraries cur­rent­ly spend about $7 mil­lion annu­al­ly on e‑books and audio­books, Ellen Paul, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Con­necti­cut Library Con­sor­tium, said.  Dawn La Valle, the direc­tor of the Divi­sion of Library Devel­op­ment at the Con­necti­cut State Library, said a typ­i­cal print book costs libraries about $15 while an e‑book license can range from $56 to $78.  

Erin Dum­mey­er, the pres­i­dent of the Con­necti­cut Library Asso­ci­a­tion and the direc­tor of Mark Twain Library in Red­ding, said many e‑book licens­es expire after two years or after about 26 check­outs, requir­ing libraries to repur­chase the same title to main­tain access.  

“So if we want­ed to keep it in our col­lec­tion after it expires, we would again have to spend between $50 and $60 on that license,” Dum­mey­er said. 

Dum­mey­er said these pric­ing mod­els direct­ly affect patrons, often result­ing in long wait times or lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty.  

“It hasn’t stopped climb­ing, and try­ing to rein in our spend­ing on e‑books is one of our great­est chal­lenges,” Dum­mey­er said. “Peo­ple love e‑books, and we want to give them what they love, but the way pub­lish­ers cre­ate these pric­ing mod­els is not sus­tain­able for libraries.” 

Although law­mak­ers passed a bill in 2025 to address these costs, the law has not tak­en effect, leav­ing libraries to con­tin­ue oper­at­ing under what many describe as unsus­tain­able pric­ing sys­tems, library direc­tors across the state said.

The law will pro­hib­it libraries from enter­ing into e‑book and dig­i­tal audio­book licens­ing agree­ments that lim­it access through expi­ra­tion dates or check­out caps. It is intend­ed to pre­vent pub­lish­ers from requir­ing libraries to repur­chase dig­i­tal titles after a set num­ber of uses or years, accord­ing to the leg­is­la­tion. 

But the law includes a trig­ger pro­vi­sion and will only go into effect if anoth­er state pass­es sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion to bring the com­bined state pop­u­la­tion to a total of sev­en mil­lion peo­ple, La Valle said.

“As of now, the leg­is­la­tion has been adopt­ed, but it’s not enforced,” La Valle said. 

Illi­nois, Mass­a­chu­setts, Rhode Island, Mis­souri, Ten­nessee and New Jer­sey have bills that are mov­ing through their leg­is­la­tures which could even­tu­al­ly trig­ger the Con­necti­cut law when passed, La Valle said. 

Kate Byroade, the direc­tor of Cra­gin Memo­r­i­al Library in Colch­ester and the co-chair of the Con­necti­cut Library Association’s Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee, said the issue has been build­ing for years as demand for dig­i­tal mate­ri­als has surged.

“The e‑book issue has been an issue basi­cal­ly for as long as e‑books have been avail­able and wide­ly pop­u­lar,” Byroade said.

Elec­tron­ic mate­ri­als now account for 23% of total library cir­cu­la­tion in Con­necti­cut as of fis­cal year 2025, up from 10.3% in 2019, accord­ing to a state library report. Audio down­loads have also increased 19% over the past year and more than 120% since fis­cal year 2019, accord­ing to the report. 

Mar­garet Khan, the  direc­tor of Booth & Dimock Memo­r­i­al Library in Coven­try and the trea­sur­er of the Con­necti­cut Library Asso­ci­a­tion, said her library some­times pays about five times what a con­sumer would pay for the same e‑book.  

“Some­times, it is about $80 for an e‑book, and that has a lim­it­ed num­ber of cir­cu­la­tions,” Khan said. 

Paul said libraries are often forced to make pur­chas­ing deci­sions based on demand rather than col­lec­tion build­ing.  

Some pop­u­lar titles can have dozens of patrons wait­ing for a sin­gle dig­i­tal copy, which may expire before all users can access it, she explained. 

“Libraries are buy­ing into the holds list,” she said.  

E‑book expens­es are also affect­ing aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions, Paul said.  

“Even though the insti­tu­tion is pay­ing for access, they are severe­ly lim­it­ed in their abil­i­ty to inter­li­brary loan that resource to anoth­er cam­pus,” Paul said. “That’s inhibit­ing the core mis­sion of the library: to share infor­ma­tion and these resources.” 

In some cas­es, Khan said, peo­ple may for­get they have a hold placed, and this can irri­tate oth­er patrons.  

“There is frus­tra­tion, often­times, with the wait times for mate­ri­als,” Khan said. “By the time you’re on the list, it might not even be avail­able any­more.”  

At the Booth & Dimock Memo­r­i­al Library, total elec­tron­ic cir­cu­la­tion increased from 6,339 in 2021 to 12,152 in 2025, Khan said.  

Dum­mey­er said her library cir­cu­lat­ed more than 21,000 dig­i­tal items last year despite serv­ing a pop­u­la­tion of few­er than 9,000 peo­ple. 

Jen­nifer John­ston-Mar­ius, the library direc­tor of Rockville Pub­lic Library in Ver­non, con­firmed that  e‑book usage at her library con­tin­ues to grow each year.  

John­ston-Mar­ius said the library record­ed more than 10,000 check­outs in 2025 through Lib­by, an app that allows patrons to bor­row e‑books for free through pub­lic libraries.

Despite the growth, John­ston-Mar­ius said main­tain­ing access to pop­u­lar titles is increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult due to the cost. 

“I can’t jus­ti­fy this many copies because it’s also a flash in a pan and in eight months, every­body will have read it, and they’ll move on,” John­ston-Mar­ius said. “It’s a real­ly frus­trat­ing set­up, how we are strug­gling to keep up with the demand, but the cost is just so high.” 

Rebec­ca Har­low, the head of ref­er­ence and adult ser­vices at Case Memo­r­i­al Library in Orange, said the pric­ing mod­el also lim­its access for patrons who rely on dig­i­tal for­mats.

“We want to pro­vide access to peo­ple with print impair­ments, includ­ing those who rely on audio­books or can­not eas­i­ly use phys­i­cal books,” Har­low said. “But many of those needs are not being met because of the way pub­lish­ers struc­ture these licens­ing mod­els.”

Pub­lish­ers and indus­try groups, how­ev­er, argue that the leg­is­la­tion could have unin­tend­ed con­se­quences for authors and read­ers.

Kathryn Rexrode, chief com­mu­ni­ca­tions offi­cer for the Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Pub­lish­ers, said pub­lish­ers raised con­cerns through­out the leg­isla­tive process and sought to find a solu­tion.

“When a new movie is released, the gov­ern­ment does not force it to be imme­di­ate­ly made avail­able for free on a pub­lic stream­ing plat­form, with­out just com­pen­sa­tion for its cre­ators,” she said in an emailed state­ment.

“This law’s pro­found dis­re­gard of author rights would grant the gov­ern­ment an alarm­ing pow­er to decide which books are acces­si­ble to Con­necti­cut read­ers and jeop­ar­dize library access to dig­i­tal books,” Rexrode said.

Despite those con­cerns, pub­lish­ers have not engaged in dis­cus­sions with libraries about chang­ing cur­rent pric­ing or licens­ing mod­els, accord­ing to Paul.

“There have not been any pub­lish­ers who have come to the table,” Paul said “Specif­i­cal­ly, there have not been any of the Big Five pub­lish­ers who have come to the table and said, ‘Let’s talk this through. Let’s come to a solu­tion on our own, rather than going this leg­isla­tive route.’” 

Paul said it is unclear how pub­lish­ers will respond if the law takes effect and added that legal chal­lenges are like­ly. 

“If this bill is trig­gered, we ful­ly expect it to be chal­lenged in court,” Paul said. “I am ful­ly con­fi­dent that this will with­stand any legal chal­lenge.” 

This sto­ry has been updat­ed to include com­ment from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Pub­lish­ers.