The Bigger Threat to Books Than Bans

Books in the US are in greater danger than you might think. Not only from widespread bans, nor even from the ferocious attacks by the federal government, which has so far this year attempted a takeover of the Library of Congress, removed volumes on gender and diversity from military libraries, and scheduled a “patriotic” review of collections at the Smithsonian. The biggest threat to books may in fact be the least known: the oligopoly of intermediaries controlling their distribution.

US libraries, universities, and bookstores rely for the delivery of books on a small number of very big profit-driven companies, many of them privately held, whose commitment to freedom of expression is at best uncertain. The list includes the Follett Corporation ($2.8 billion in annual revenues), Clarivate ($2.6 billion), EBSCO Industries ($3.1 billion), KKR ($22.7 billion), and Ingram Industries ($2.7 billion). Each of these companies represents a potential chokepoint for books and periodicals. They all exercise near-monopolistic control over a piece of the distribution chain, with the capacity to render whole catalogues of e-books inaccessible to library patrons, or to university students, or online book buyers, at the flick of a switch.

Nearly all publishers of newspapers, magazines, and commercial books, as well as the tens of thousands of small, independent, and academic publishers, rely on these same few companies to get their books into libraries, schools, and bookstores. Industry consolidation means that publishers have little choice but to sign contracts advantageous to distributors and the lifelines to revenues they offer, while having little negotiating power with respect to terms.

In the case of e-books, where these near monopolies have consolidated and solidified over the past decade, the danger of a sudden loss of access is particularly acute. When you borrow and read an e-book at your library, for example, that transaction is almost certainly handled by the country’s largest private equity company, KKR. The firm currently controls as much as 90 percent of library e-book loans through its OverDrive/Libby platform, according to a 2023 report from Library Journal.