E-books from the library
Jan. 9th, 2021 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinI'm obviously way behind the times on this, but thought I'd talk about the experience. Having gotten a Kindle for Christmas, I was reconciling myself to either buying a lot of content or cobbling together some kind of side-loading solution (though actually "email to Kindle" is pretty nice in that regard). Then Rachel Shaw and my mother-in-law Diane Wilkinson both pointed out on Facebook that it's pretty easy to borrow e-books from the public library. So I (very belatedly) got myself a library card and figured out how to do that.
Since I'm using a dedicated Kindle, the way to do it is with an external app called Libby (which is a web app and also a phone/tablet app). You put your library card information in there, and it has listings of e-books available for borrowing through your public library. The books are nicely presented with cover art and sample pages you can read right in the app. If the book is available, you can borrow it immediately; if it's not, you can put a hold on it, which I guess puts you in a queue for when it's available, and there's a screen for managing your current loans and holds.
The Libby app is itself a fine book reader--if you want, you can just read the books right there; Amazon need not be involved at all. I've seen a bit of how it looks from reading sample pages.
But most of these books (not necessarily all of them) are also available in Kindle editions. If you set Kindle as your reading preference, when you borrow the book it will direct you to your Amazon account, where you can select a device and trigger a download. Then the book will just appear on your Kindle.
The first one I tried had a three-week lending period, which seems pretty generous. When you're done reading the book, you can "return" it through the app or, I think, the Kindle itself, which presumably takes it off the device (I haven't done that yet). It's an interesting model, with a limited number of reading licenses taking the place of the supply of physical copies in regular book-lending.
Jorie has a Fire tablet, and there, the preferred way to do it is apparently to use an older version of the app called OverDrive that allows borrowing directly from the tablet. But it should work with Libby as well, if you use that through an outside device or a web browser, since the Kindle app on the tablet ought to work just like any Kindle.
My sense is that the available e-book collection through my library is not super-deep once you get past contemporary fiction, very recent pop nonfiction and magazines (for any sort of actual research you'll have to go to the physical stacks), but there's actually plenty of stuff I'd like to read there, especially in recent science fiction and fantasy.
Since I'm using a dedicated Kindle, the way to do it is with an external app called Libby (which is a web app and also a phone/tablet app). You put your library card information in there, and it has listings of e-books available for borrowing through your public library. The books are nicely presented with cover art and sample pages you can read right in the app. If the book is available, you can borrow it immediately; if it's not, you can put a hold on it, which I guess puts you in a queue for when it's available, and there's a screen for managing your current loans and holds.
The Libby app is itself a fine book reader--if you want, you can just read the books right there; Amazon need not be involved at all. I've seen a bit of how it looks from reading sample pages.
But most of these books (not necessarily all of them) are also available in Kindle editions. If you set Kindle as your reading preference, when you borrow the book it will direct you to your Amazon account, where you can select a device and trigger a download. Then the book will just appear on your Kindle.
The first one I tried had a three-week lending period, which seems pretty generous. When you're done reading the book, you can "return" it through the app or, I think, the Kindle itself, which presumably takes it off the device (I haven't done that yet). It's an interesting model, with a limited number of reading licenses taking the place of the supply of physical copies in regular book-lending.
Jorie has a Fire tablet, and there, the preferred way to do it is apparently to use an older version of the app called OverDrive that allows borrowing directly from the tablet. But it should work with Libby as well, if you use that through an outside device or a web browser, since the Kindle app on the tablet ought to work just like any Kindle.
My sense is that the available e-book collection through my library is not super-deep once you get past contemporary fiction, very recent pop nonfiction and magazines (for any sort of actual research you'll have to go to the physical stacks), but there's actually plenty of stuff I'd like to read there, especially in recent science fiction and fantasy.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-10 06:42 pm (UTC)And if you're a university alumnus in good standing, you might have access to the university's ebook system if they have one. Those may be mainly PDFs, but you never know.
(I work at a university library)
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 05:38 pm (UTC)And, yes, it appears that at least in principle I have alumni access to some major academic libraries, though I need to look into the details.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 06:12 pm (UTC)Gutenberg is an old friend of mine! When I make more money, and I may be going to full-time work later this year, they get $10 out of every paycheck.