/ The Unhinged Librarian

The Record · updated June 5, 2026

Who owns your library’s software?

The companies behind it, what they take from your patrons, and what it costs you. Vendor contracts, AI governance, library labor, and the open alternatives, each with the source attached.

REC-001 · OPEN FILE VENDOR / PRIVACY · SOURCED

OverDrive Built a Product Out of What Your Patrons Read

It’s called Amplify. Not a leak, not an allegation: OverDrive’s own sponsored announcement, which says it draws on “hundreds of millions of monthly reading sessions across Libby and Sora.”

“Aggregated, anonymized, and for the first time, genuinely actionable.” · OverDrive, on your patrons’ reading data
Read the investigation →
OverDrive’s sponsored Amplify announcement, describing reading-data analytics drawn from Libby and Sora
EXHIBIT · OverDrive’s sponsored Amplify panel. Source attached in the filing.

Open records

All investigations →

Ownership traces

Who sits above the app

KKRPrivate equity

  • OverDriveowns Libby / Sora, the rails your patrons read on
  • Simon & Schusterowns the books you license back

One owner, both sides of the desk.

Read the filing →

Baker & TaylorChapter 11

  • Boundless / LibraryOnesold for $750,000
  • the buyeris the ex-B&T team that built it

A digital lending platform for less than a warehouse building.

Read the filing →

Francisco PartnersPrivate equity

  • bought Follett School Solutionsin 2021, then split software from content
  • Follett Softwareruns Destiny, the library system in 75,000+ K-12 schools worldwide

The catalog most schools run on, owned by a PE firm.

Source: School Library Journal →