EDMONTON — If your holiday plans include downloading an audiobook of Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" from a public library collection, or unwinding with an electronic copy of Justin Trudeau's "Common Ground," you could be out of luck.

Libraries across Canada are running into barriers in accessing both ebooks and digital audiobooks for their patrons.

Some material completely unavailable

Sharon Day, who chairs an e-content working group for the Canadian Urban Library Council, says major ebook publishers are charging unfair prices and Audible — the company that owns the rights to many digital audiobooks — is declining to share them at all.

"Some of the material just isn't available at all," Day said, noting that's especially true for audiobooks.

In the case of ebooks, there are restrictive library licensing models in place that are set by the publishers, she said.

We face excessively high prices and restrictive models for these ebooks.Sharon Day, Canadian Urban Library Council

Each of Canada's "Big 5" publishers — Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster — subscribe to the so-called one copy, one user model that mirrors a physical lending model. That means the ebook 'copy' can only be downloaded on one device at a time.

Some of those publishers also have more restrictions. For example, each copy of a Macmillan ebook expires after 52 circulations or two years, whichever comes first, Day said.

However, the problem isn't necessarily the model but the price, she said. While a physical book might cost $22, it can cost the library $100 for a copy of the electronic version.

"We face excessively high prices and restrictive models for these ebooks," she said.

Watch: Google makes it easier to access free legal ebooks. Story continues below.