Provision of Physical Audio Books to the Libraries West Consortium

Suppliers buy the publishing rights to produce physical audiobooks and each supplier has the sole supply of the items for which they have purchased the publishing rights. If a supplier holds the rights for a title that we wish to purchase, we can only buy it from this supplier. Purchasing library editions of physical audiobooks ensures we are not breaking the law by lending titles that are only for personal use.

Physical audiobooks were previously included as part of past tenders for audio visual supply. However, since 2013, no suppliers within the market have submitted a bid for this format of stock through a competitive process of which LibrariesWest has been part. Suppliers of this format know that customers who wish to buy physical audiobook titles are limited to the suppliers with publishing rights. There is no advantage to suppliers in taking part in competitive tenders.