Wednesday, January 9, 2013

eBooks and Libraries

I've only recently discovered Overdrive, and the role it plays in ebooks and libraries, and I was initially thrilled by those discoveries.  Bear in mind, I am not a librarian yet, I am still waiting for my opportunity, and building up a great swathe of ideas that I will use when that moment arrives.  So it was mostly as a kindle owner, that the discovery of Overdrive was pretty thrilling.  I love having a library in my handbag that I can dip into for whatever mood is upon me.  I have a long list of old favourites, and a longer list of TO READ books in a special folder (there are currently 48 waiting to be read).

Then today I read This blog, and feel like I've been cheated. That it will all change and be taken away from me before I can get into it.   Publishers seem to be deliberately making the access of digital content expensive and complicated.  The idea of allowing a library to purchase the rights to lending a book only 26 times before it expires seems like madness.  It already irritates me that having bought digital books, if I decide I don't like them, I can't recoup any of the cost of purchase by selling them on to someone else who might enjoy them, but I only buy books I expect to really love, and always try a sample of the book before I hand over any money, and they are generally not too expensive.  I won't pay more than $12, that is my rule.  More than that, I just don't bother. 

One of the comments on the blog also surprised me, as it relayed something I didn't know - that books I've bought for my kindle aren't actually mine, I am just "allowed to read it," potentially, they could take it back off me.  That seems wrong.  I've done the right thing by paying for the book - when there are ways to circumvent the necessity for this, but they could take it off me if I buy it from amazon?  Is this true?  What incentive does that give me for doing the right thing? 

If this is the way things are going to be, libraries won't be interested/able to maintain a digital collection because it will become financially unsustainable.  It seems a shame.

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