The Bookseller’s FutureBook blog is carrying a post by e-book distributor OverDrive, touting the benefits of multi-channel distribution for e-books. Concentrating solely on e-book stores such as those for Kindle and Nook ignores readers who buy from other places or borrow from libraries, OverDrive notes.
Libraries begin to offer their readers courses in how to work with ebooks and ereaders:
As you may have noticed, more and more libraries around the world are now offering their readers the possibility of borrowing ebooks – obviously a good trend and one that we all support (with the possible exception of the Publishers who feel they are being cheated by this ebook lending).
However, as has been pointed out, this can produce problems both for the libraries themselves and for many of their readers. To borrow ebooks from your local library demands a certain level of computer literacy, which quite a few ereader owners simply do not possess, and this seems to be causing problems.
Many ereaders are owned by elderly folk, who seem to have taken to ereaders in a big way, but from the comments and emails I get here, it is obvious that many of these readers are OK with using the Kindle system to obtain their ebooks, but anything more complex can floor them very rapidly.
Sadly, if you happen to own a Kindle, libraries are not a source of ebooks for you, as Overdrive does not support the ebook format that Amazon have elected to use for their ebooks, so you will only be able to borrow ebooks from your local library if you own another make of ereader, and this is where the problem begins, as most ereaders use a relatively clumsy method of getting ebooks safely loaded into them.
In order to address this problem, an increasing number of libraries are beginning to offer their readers courses in how to work with Overdrive (the software system that most libraries use to deal with lending ebooks).
As the Overdrive system is actually pretty simple for people (borrowers) to use, these courses are not long and don’t require a high level of computer literacy in order to master how it all works and to open up the world of ebooks in libraries.
If you are one of those who are finding the whole business of borrowing ebooks from your local library complex, it would be well worth your while to go along and ask them if they are running any such courses, or at the least if they have someone there who would be prepared to walk you through the process.
After all, using your local library as a source of ebooks is very sensible and will save you a lot of money as well.
So, time to be proactive and encourage your local library to organise such courses at once.
Share with us:
Do you have any thoughts on libraries lending ebooks and the technical aspects of this idea?
