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Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

What is CDL?

“Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) is an emerging method that allows libraries to loan print books to digital patrons in a “lend like print” fashion. Through CDL, libraries use technical controls to ensure a consistent “owned-to-loaned” ratio, meaning the library circulates the exact number of copies of a specific title it owns, regardless of format, putting controls in place to prevent users from redistributing or copying the digitized version. When CDL is appropriately tailored to reflect print book market conditions and controls are properly implemented, CDL may be permissible under existing copyright law. CDL is not intended to act as a substitute for existing electronic licensing services offered by publishers. Indeed, one significant advantage of CDL is addressing the “Twentieth Century Problem” of older books still under copyright but unlikely ever to be offered digitally by commercial services.” From: Controlled Digital Lending website

“Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) has been receiving attention throughout the library and publishing communities as a potential remedy to the restrictive ebook licensing practices operated by some publishers. Libraries argue that these licensing practices undermine the balance between private interests and public access that have long been part of copyright laws, and limit the way library users get access to information and culture. CDL proposes that as long as libraries legitimately acquire physical copies of collection items, it is legal to digitise and provide access to users on a 1:1 “owned to loaned” ratio. CDL is gaining traction in the US and Canada, and IFLA has recently released a statement identifying its potential across the world.” Extract from: Upcoming webinar on the strategic and practical implications of CDL for UK academic libraries. Jane Secker UK Copyright Literacy blog. 13 August 2021


Library Lending Fit for the 21st Century? Controlled Digital Lending in the UK . David Prosser. RLUK blog. 27 September 2021

From the blog: “Over the past few decades, a growing proportion of materials purchased by libraries has been in electronic rather than physical format. This format shift has brought many changes in the way in which we make materials available, and archive and preserve them. We have also moved in many areas from owning materials to leasing or renting them. However, nothing in these shifts affect the fundamental principle that libraries should be able to lend the materials that they have acquired to the communities they serve.”


IFLA releases a statement on Controlled Digital Lending.16 June 2021

From the statement: “Controlled Digital Lending can represent an important tool for libraries. IFLA therefore supports this, underlining its ability to offer libraries the freedom to provide access to their collections, both during the pandemic and beyond. To achieve this, IFLA argues that all countries should recognise the possibility for libraries to lend works, that laws should be adapted to the digital environment so that libraries can continue their mission to provide access to information and knowledge in the modern age, and that the combination of exceptions – for example to digitise and lend – should not be restricted unnecessarily.”

Controlled Digital Lending to Play a Larger Role in Ex Libris Products. Ex Libris Press Release 19 August 2021

Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is happy to announce the development of new functions that will increase the compatibility of the company’s library software solutions with controlled digital lending. Controlled digital lending (CDL) is a practice that enables libraries to lend a digital copy of a physical resource in a “lend like print” manner—that is, in the same way in which they lend the physical resource itself.

The Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries group has defined three “core principles” of CDL: “A library must own a legal copy of the physical book, either by purchase or gift; the library must maintain an ‘owned to loaned’ ratio, simultaneously lending no more copies than it legally owns; the library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed”.


Transforming Our Libraries: 12 Stories About Controlled Digital Lending. By: Caralee Adams, Lila Bailey and Chris Freeland. ControledDigitalLending.org 2019

controlled_digital_lending.1636562930.txt.gz · Last modified: 2021/11/10 11:48 by admin