With the Covid-19 pandemic still impacting libraries and schools across the nation, Penguin Random House announced this week that it has once again extended its Temporary Library Terms of Sale for digital content as well as its temporary story time permissions, both of which will now run through March, 31, 2022.
Under the terms of its programs, PRH will continue to offer libraries (through participating wholesalers) the option to license e-books and digital audio for one-year terms at a 50% prorated price as an alternative to the standard two-year term (for e-books) or perpetual access (for digital audio). A cost-per-circulation model is also available.
For read-aloud videos, PRH will continue its open license offering, which asks only that educators, librarians, booksellers and other readers seeking to post readings from Penguin Random House books to complete an online form.
All PRH titles are eligible for the programs (frontlist and backlist, adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction titles, as well as titles published by DK and Penguin Random House Publisher Services client publishers).
The temporary programs first went into effect in spring of 2020 in the very early days of the Covid-19 crisis and wil have been in force for a full two years by the time of their new expiration, if they are not extended further.
Librarians have told PW the temporary pro-rated terms have offered them much-needed flexibility in managing their digital budgets with digital lending surging as much as 40% as libraries and schools across the nation were initially forced to close their buildings or to operate at limited capacity. Now, in year two of the pandemic, schools and libraries have largely reopened but librarians say that the demand for digital resources remains significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels.
