As the entire world adjusts to “the new normal” of the COVID-19 global pandemic, more and more people are starting to take a look at what worked and what didn’t in terms of adjusting to everyday life. A number of companies and businesses are looking at things like employee productivity and absenteeism in light of work-from-home accommodations. Schools around the world are putting effort into seeing how virtual options can actually be beneficial to some students, and how online opportunities can be a great classroom supplement. Even retailers and restaurants who adopted curbside and delivery options in order to stay afloat have learned that they reached entirely new customers due to these offerings.

On an individual level, a lot of people came to enjoy masking up and maintaining social distancing, and no, it wasn’t just the introverts.

Another group benefited at the onset of COVID restrictions, namely public and school libraries. In an effort to provide digital content to libraries that were shuttered for safety, publishers like Penguin Random House adjusted the terms of contracts to permit libraries to access shareable content that patrons could then consume from the safety of a lockdown environment. The “digital surge,” which Publisher’s Weekly reports was as high as a 40% increase last year, isn’t slowing down thanks to publishers’ terms which enabled already stringent budgets to stretch in order to support patrons’ needs.

Now, PRH has announced that their 2020 temporary terms will be extended… could that become an indefinite or even permanent change?

“With these new interim terms we introduced in March 2020, and with this extension, our publishers remain unwavering in our commitment to support public and school libraries, ensuring that all of our titles are available day-and-date to consumers and patrons,” said Skip Dye, PRH senior v-p, Library Sales & Digital Strategy. “This community is telling us that these temporary terms are helping to make our authors’ works more accessible for educators and students, especially those who are continuing to engage in remote learning, and to library patrons across the country, which is very gratifying.”

However long it lasts, we can at least hope it provides evidence that more malleable digital lending terms are good for publishers and authors, but also good for libraries. If any good can come from the events of this past year, it’s understanding that we don’t have to go back to the “old normal” because it simply wasn’t working.