Surging book demand leaves NC libraries struggling with long waitlists, pricey content; NC Newsline, August 21, 2026

 KATE DENNING, CAROLINA PUBLIC PRESS VIA NC Newsline; Surging book demand leaves NC libraries struggling with long waitlists, pricey content

"If you’re someone who frequents a North Carolina public library — especially in an urban area like Raleigh or Charlotte — you might be all too familiar with searching the catalog for a buzzy book, only to find the waitlist is hundreds, if not thousands, of people long.

Local library employees say the entire country faces this issue, but North Carolina’s booming population and the growing number of library patrons in the state make it especially challenging.

Even worse than the waitlist for physical copies is the one for e-book and audiobook versions. E-content has unique barriers, including costing libraries up to three times the price of a physical book, that make it difficult to keep up with the heightened demand...

With around 66 people moving into Wake County per day, the libraries subsequently have new patrons coming in to register for a library card every single day, Brooks said. This heightened demand can be noticed most by the surge in e-content checkouts...

‘Disappearing, limited-access content’

Demand for digital items has steadily risen, especially since the pandemic, Escalante wrote. The challenge for keeping e-content available consistently is “always going to be the increasing cost of digital licenses.”

The ULC and other national library organizations recently spoke out about the strain the licensing process and cost of e-content is putting on local branches. An open letter to book publishers says while individuals pay $13 for an e-book on average, which they maintain access to in perpetuity, libraries often spend upwards of $55 for a singular two-year license.

“Many libraries are now spending 50% or more of their collections budgets — taxpayer funds — on disappearing, limited-access content, giving them less ability to support lesser-known authors and smaller publishers,” the statement reads.

“Meanwhile, wait times for readers of all ages have exploded, as libraries spend more to get less in our digital collection.”"

New open access resources from Library of Congress; Illinois State University News, March 2, 2023

Eric Willey, Illinois State University News; New open access resources from Library of Congress

"For those interested in Open Access materials, one of the places to watch is the Library of Congress (LoC). Often serving in the role of a de facto national library, the LoC contributes Open Access materials on a wide variety of topics to its digital collections and publicizes the efforts through a blog, The Signal.

The librarians at LoC have hit the ground running in 2023, having added historical recordings, books, and datasets to their online collections. These include 58 new recordings to the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature from the 1960s-1980s, and LandScan GIS datasets for Ukraine and Russia that include population density. The library also added over 100 Open Access ebooks and German language newspapers published in Washington, D.C.

Even when online materials are Open Access, they still require software to be viewed. In February, LoC announced the creation of an EPUB reader for its ebooks. This viewer allows readers to access over 6,000 OA ebooks on the website without downloading a PDF and provides an improved interface for readers.

LoC is also planning to actively add materials to its online collections in the future and has outlined a digitization strategy for 2023-2027. With over 9 million items already digitized, this program offers five guiding principles to “expand, optimize, and centralize its collections digitization program to significantly expand access to users across the country to rare, distinctive, and unique collection materials which can be made openly available online and use digitization as a core method for preservation reformatting of rights restricted collection materials.”"