Photo by Deb Gau Plum Creek Library System Director Elizabeth Hoffman answered questions from the Lyon County Board during a presentation Tuesday.

MARSHALL — Paying for digital resources like audiobooks has become a bigger challenge for public libraries in southwest Minnesota, said Plum Creek Library System director Elizabeth Hoffman. This week, Hoffman said the library system was asking Lyon and other area counties for help funding the purchase of audiobooks and e-books for area libraries.

“We still want to offer that service, and we’re looking at ways to make it more affordable,” Hoffman said Tuesday, during a presentation to Lyon County Commissioners.

In the meantime, she said PCLS was requesting $3,250 from Lyon County to help support PCLS resources like e-books and audiobooks.

PCLS has member libraries across a nine-county region. Within Lyon County, the Minneota Public Library, Tracy Public Library, and the Marshall-Lyon County Library and its branch locations are all members of PCLS.

In her report to the board, Hoffman said PCLS services had a total value of over $1 million for the community. That figure broke down into shared services like digital resources, interlibrary loans and continuing education programs.

“In particular, we have our delivery service, that shared ILS (Integrated Library System) where we’re able to make materials available to each other across the system,” she said. “We have our IT services, which host websites for our member libraries. Here in Lyon County that includes Tracy and Minneota.”

Hoffman said in particular, she wanted to talk about the digital resources PCLS provides member libraries and the public.

“Those include databases for research, and e-books and e-audiobooks, which patrons throughout the region borrow and use,” Hoffman said. “We see a lot of use of audiobooks in our region.”

However, the price of audiobooks has continued to rise for libraries, she said.

“It is not in step with the price of the rising costs of regular print materials or even audiobooks being made available to the public,” Hoffman said. “Public libraries have to go through specific vendors to purchase those materials, and the big five publishers set the prices that we have to pay for access.”

Hoffman said libraries pay about three to six times the price per item that a member of the public does.

Hoffman said PCLS was requesting $3,250 from each of the nine counties in its service region to help with funding to continue to provide access to audiobooks and e-books in 2027.