▲ ▼ I don't have access to a proper library in my city
I live in a Tier 2 city with a population of 40 lakhs. There are lots schools and colleges in my town but there are no good public libraries. As a working professional that likes to read in my free time, I have to rely on buying books online which proves to be very expensive.
I would love to have a library like The British Library in my town or some other alternative where I can borrow books.
I think the adoption of ebook readers like Kindle has taken place due to economical reasons, for less than half the price of a physical book rental I can get unlimited access to books on Kindle subscription. So, I think even those who longed for physical books have accepted the reality and move on; just like how people have moved from news papers to online news.
I agree with the economical reasons for the fall of physical book rental, but a better analogy in my opinion is a land-line telephone rather than the news papers. News paper still serves the need gap of structured information rather than the unstructured realtime news of the online media. Where as land-line telephone just became obsolete due to better features from mobile telephones.
News paper publishing agencies have ensured that the news articles are categorised i.e. front page, regional, international, technology, economics, business etc. and also maintain the quality of journalism i.e. at least the reputed brands. Where as in online news, one article could be about 'moon landing' and next could be 'You won't believe what this actress wore for airport'. May be I am exaggerating, few online media does maintain journalism standards.
Next are the audio books, In my opinion audio books offer more value than the ebooks. I feel new books are even being written with keeping audio books in mind i.e. more dialogue oriented conversation. I listened to the 'Themsis Files' by Sylvain Neuvel, it seemed perfect for an audio book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Physical books may become coveted as vacuum tube amplifiers used by audiophiles.
Library access in even colleges and universities are declining. According to Yale, there has been 64% decline in books getting checked out at its Bass Library. I assume, the figures are much lower in the public libraries and hence there are no new large libraries being created. Apart from easier access to the Internet, lack of incentive to allocate time for visiting a physical library and of course decreasing number of book readers itself might be to blame.
I guess there will be some who would wish there was an easier, affordable access to physical books like yourself. If you don't mind loosing the ambience of a physical library, have you tried online rental of books?
I think there is only service like that - https://justbooks.in but they are also struggling I think. They are not in my town though
Found a couple in this Quora answer - https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-book-rental-websites-in-India/answer/Pankaj-Chobharkar . Most of them seem to have converted to B2B model i.e. renting books to educational institutions and offices.
Librarywala and Doorstep books seems to be still targeting consumers and covering most cities in the country starting at 500-600/month. Would you be willing to spend such amount on renting single book every month?
Also check if there are book reading facebook group in your city, if there is one I would recommend sending this need gap to them for a comment.