In the Personal Tech section of The New York Times (@NYTpersonaltech), Alan Finder explains why you may or may not be able to digitally check-out your favorite books from your local library; and, if you find them, exactly how to do it.
Five of the six major publishers of trade books either refuse to make new ebooks available to libraries or have pulled back significantly over the last year on how easily or how often those books can be circulated. And complaints are rampant about lengthy waiting lists for best sellers and other popular ebooks from the publishers that are willing to sell to libraries....
These complexities may only increase with the announcement [April 11] that the Justice Department had filed a civil antitrust action against major book publishers and Apple, accusing the companies of colluding in 2010 to raise the prices of ebooks [on this subject, see the Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) article, “ABA Calls DoJ Ruling ‘Baffling’” and its other coverage]. In the meantime, though, if you can find the ebook you want in the library, it’s easy to check it out. You can browse a library’s digital holdings from the comfort of your living room at any time. You don’t have to go to the library to borrow a book, and even better, you don’t have to go there to return it. Books vanish from your device when they are due. And you can get access to a library’s ebooks from myriad devices, including e-readers, tablets, and smartphones.
You do have to learn one of the two basic systems. One is for Amazon’s Kindle, which works directly through Amazon.com and is the easier of the two. The other requires you to download software from the Adobe website, and works for other e-readers.
For a historical view on the topic of libraries and ebooks, see Mathew Ingram’s (@mathewi) article on GigaOm (@gigaom), “Kindle Lending: Book Publishers Still Not Getting It.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you navigate 21st century digital publishing.
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