written by Shelley O’Brien, Executive Director of the Johnson County Library Foundation
As a child I spent a lot of time in the basement ‘rec room’ of our home playing with my toys and listening to music on my parents 8-track stereo system. I had 5 albums on 8-track tapes to choose from which included the Doobie Brothers and the Bee Gees. It’s no wonder why I still love yacht rock and disco!
8-tracks were seen as a technology upgrade in the 1960s and 70s. You could play your music in the car, unlike vinyl. Like all technology, 8-track became a way of the past as we upgraded to cassette tapes in the 1980s, then DVDs in the 1990s, and now streaming.
At the Johnson County Library, we love to provide different material formats to our library patrons. We have an extensive collection of DVDs and music CDs available for you to check out. Unfortunately, obtaining and replacing these materials is getting more and more difficult for the Library. Just like 8-track tapes, DVDs are an industry that is starting to go away.
“Unfortunately, DVDs are part of a trend towards licensing instead of ownership. In other words, fewer people own physical copies in an era when we can easily stream or download instead. Whether streaming caused the DVD decline or vice-versa, many production companies just don’t create DVDs of their movies”, says Beth, our DVD selector for the Johnson County Library.
“It’s more profitable to charge for streaming access than selling copies people can own and lend out. Streaming access is a contract that does not allow redistribution by third parties (like the Library). In other words, the company that owns the intellectual property gets to choose who can watch it and where.”
You may not have noticed that Best Buy stopped carrying DVDs and Target is limiting shelf space. What you see now is Blu-Ray and 4K formats being sold to collectors. Beth continues, “limited copies of special Blu-Ray and 4K editions of some films are for sale, but the decline in physical media isn’t limited to DVD. Blu-Ray production also continues to decline. LG was one of the last big electronics companies still making Blu-Ray players, but in 2024 they announced they were ending production.”
Additionally, DVD distribution companies are now creating DVDs in a way that doesn’t work with some older DVD players. Beth continues, “many DVD players have a built-in feature to help stop bootleg movies. They won’t play DVDs that were burned onto DVD-R (or DVD-Recordable) type discs. When lots of stores sold DVDs, wholesalers had warehouses of ready DVDs to sell that were not on DVD-R. Lately, it’s much more economical for those same retailers to purchase a contract that lets them legally burn movies on DVD-R discs once an order is placed. This means DVD-R movies are pretty common in stores and libraries now.” Nothing is more frustrating than checking out a DVD at the Library to get home and it doesn’t work.
Some public libraries across the country are removing their DVD collections — and music CD’s, large print books, physical newspapers, and physical magazines. All are getting more difficult to purchase and maintain for library usage.
The world is changing rapidly, which is good and bad. For the moment, we see that physical books are here to stay. Our collection at the Johnson County Library is 50/50 physical books and digital book/audiobooks. It will be fascinating to see how the publishing industry adapts in the future.
Some say change is inevitable. We know that a lot of people love and depend on DVDs from the Library for their entertainment. At the Johnson County Library, we will try to keep this service going as long as we can, while maintaining a quality collection. Unfortunately, like the 8-track tape, DVDs may be on the decline and phasing out due to forces beyond the Library’s control. We will continue to assess and keep you updated as we navigate this new world together.