Comment by ac29
2 days ago
I don't see anything about libby/overdrive support which isn't surprising but is unfortunate.
Integration with libraries is the killer feature of ereaders IMO
2 days ago
I don't see anything about libby/overdrive support which isn't surprising but is unfortunate.
Integration with libraries is the killer feature of ereaders IMO
Is it? Calibre with deDRM is a must for me. I love Overdrive but cannot imagine to stick to the forced regime of lending periods and random waiting times. I also typically read multiple (sometimes dozens of) non-fiction books in parallel, plus one or two fiction. That just wouldn’t work at all with digital lending.
It's the only way that works with digital lending! If you want to always have something available to read you need to be steadily queuing up books, but then they come in at a semi-random time so you have to jump between books depending on lending periods / length / interest to get through everything you have checked out before they get returned.
This is really sad. You're just pirating books. At least go use a pirate website and don't ruin libraries for the rest of us.
We will no longer have public goods if the public abuses them.
I honestly don’t see the harm about removing the lending period for my personal reading. It will only make me check out and read more books. Can you detail the harm I am causing? It’s like making photocopies of books for my own use, which is still legal.
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I love the idea of OverDrive but I've yet to have success with it. Either the book I'm interested in isn't available or it's unavailable for weeks. I don't have a ton of time to read or to drop what I am reading when something becomes available, so I usually just wind up buying the book if I'm really excited about it.
Granted, my library is not part of a major city's system but it's also not what I'd call a small one. I'd be curious to know how NYC or Chicago compare, as those are where people I know have had very positive experiences with these options.
What works for me with overdrive is using holds and then when it comes available, if I'm not ready to read I let someone skip ahead of me. That way I'm still next in line but it gives me a few days until someone else finishes the book and then it pings me again.
If you read one book a quarter then yeah it’s not for you. If you read one book a week you can queue up fifty good books and wait for that one to come available at some point in the year.
I used to do that but then like 10 books would come available at the same time and I'd feel all this pressure to read them as fast as possible.
In the end I gave up and just download now.
Just Pirate stuff on Annas Archive. Jumping through these ridiculous hoops for less than a floppy disk of data is just a humiliation ritual.
Authors should get paid for their work, though. Publishers, too, to be honest (they also do a lot of work and usually run on thin margins).
Waiting in line in a library app is annoying, but the waiting signals demand, which drives the library to buy more copies to circulate.
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Huh cool, we don't have any such large online libraries in Europe. Some countries or regions have some small online repos but it's a real PITA to get working as they all use Adobe drm.
I used to buy on kindle but since they made it much harder to break drm I just pirate now. I'm not paying for content I don't get to own.
I have an account with Berlin libraries and they offer both Libby and Overdrive (and some others) with a fairly large catalog. There is deDRM for calibre, and a command line tool called Knock which does not require Adobe software to remove the DRM.
Ah nice we don't have anything like that here.
But I don't think I will go back from what I'm doing now. It took a lot to get me to leave Amazon, but the DRM thing and also lately the larger amount of books "not available in your country or region" has just made me give up on the industry.
I will buy books now only if they are available to buy without DRM, and if they are not I will just pirate them.