Digitization and the Demand for Physical Works: Evidence from the Google Books Project

Format:Print
| Language:English

Abstract

The digital era promised to deliver a centralized repository of all pre-existing knowledge through mass digitization. However, concerns about cannibalizing demand for physical works have led publishers and authors to block the realization of this vision. We investigate the effect of mass digitization on demand for physical works using novel data tracking the timing of the digitization of individual books from Harvard University’s libraries through the Google Books project. Digitization hurt loans within Harvard but increased sales of physical editions by about 35%, especially for less popular works. Rather than cannibalizing demand for physical works, mass digitization could increase demand for them, while also increasing their diffusion online.