I’m in the crowd of people who like the idea of a digital reading device (i.e. Kindle, Nook, etc) but I can’t get past the idea of paying for a digital copy that I can’t ‘give’ to someone when I’m done with it.
It’s my understanding that a lot of libraries offer eBooks for patrons with digital readers. How does it work? Do you sign up for a service, and then you’re able to down load the book for a predetermined amount of time?
Is there any reason to physically go to my local library. If it’s digital I suppose as long as I have a membership I could borrow any digital text I wanted as long as I was a registered member.
I’m guessing all digital readers are not created equal. What would I need to look for in terms of compatibility?
I haven’t had any actual experience with library e-books, so hopefully those who have will share their experience. But, as I understand it, if your public library lets you borrow e-books, they’ll be in EPUB format, which is compatible with most common e-readers except the Kindle. (Although in another current thread, Blackberry mentions borrowing library books, stripping the DRM, and converting them so that they can be read on the Kindle.)
And if I understand correctly, the library only buys a certain number of licenses for its e-books, so if all of its electronic “copies” of a book are currently “checked out,” you have to wait until someone “returns” their copy before you can read it.
Indeed I do. Oh, and I forgot to mention this before, but some of the books are in PDF or Mobi (which is what Kindle uses, but these ones are protected by DRM) format. Most are ePub though. And those are the best ones, because they format correctly. The PDF ones get weird, although you can still read them. I haven’t tried the Mobi ones.
Yeah, that’s how it is here in Seattle. And OP, around here anyway, there’s no reason to physically go to the library; it can all be done from the website. But not all books are available in digital format. There are a lot more than there used to be a few years ago when I first started looking, but there are still a lot that aren’t, too.
Anyhoo, the point here is that if you want to read library books on your ereader, either get a Kindle and convert the files or get a nook and be slightly less cool (lol) but you won’t have to bother converting the files.