OverDrive Adds Kindle-Format Titles to Library Ebook Lending
American public and school libraries will now be able to lend digital copies of books via Amazon’s Kindle ecosystem of hardware ebook readers and software apps for desktop and mobile operating systems. But it’s not as marvelous as a quick read of the headlines might imply. Amazon isn’t opening up their catalog of Kindle titles. Rather, the Kindle connection is a deal between Amazon and OverDrive, the dominant digital book lending system used by over 11,000 public and school libraries in the United States. (The company doesn’t break library types out by category. There are over 9,000 discretely organized public library systems in America, but nearly 100,000 school libraries.)
Libraries contract with OverDrive, which in turn has negotiated licenses with publishers. OverDrive makes software for Mac OS X, Windows, and mobile platforms to provide limited-term use of checked-out items, much the same as a physical library loan. The firm started with locked WMA files for audiobooks, a format supported only under Windows. OverDrive added MP3 versions in 2008, long after the rise of the iPod, and, more recently, released iOS and other mobile apps to enable direct download and playback without syncing through iTunes. (In 2009, Matt Neuburg described his frustrations with OverDrive’s process of checking out audiobooks for Mac OS X in “A Silly Saga: How I Downloaded an
Audio Book from My Library.” Annoyingly, OverDrive hasn’t improved the process in the last several years.)
The company started offering ebooks for loan and online viewing in the early 2000s, providing secured forms of Adobe PDF that, as with audiobooks, could expire to enable short-term loans. It later added Adobe’s secured EPUB format. This was a boon for mobile reading, although OverDrive’s own readers leave much to be desired. (Earlier this year, Michael Cohen described avoiding OverDrive’s app for iOS, and using the free Bluefire EPUB and PDF viewer instead in “OverDrive, Bluefire, and the EPUBlic Library,” 18 February 2011.)
The Kindle announcement is essentially a format extension, not a new deal between libraries and Amazon that would add hundreds of thousands of books to OverDrive’s collection. In most cases, libraries can now offer their existing OverDrive ebook collections in Kindle format as well as PDF and EPUB.
It’s worth noting that OverDrive’s licenses cover an exact number of simultaneous loans. That is, if a library purchased three ebook licenses and three patrons have “checked out” an ebook, no additional loans may be made until the original ones expire. Publishers are now starting to demand a maximum number of loans per purchased license — 26 in the case of Harper Collins books. This is supposed to simulate a physical book wearing out over time, as ridiculous as that sounds.
My local library system, the Seattle Public Library, has over 25,000 unique digital items to lend, many of which are licensed for just a single copy at a time. Of those, 18,000 may be borrowed in PDF format, 24,000 in EPUB format, and over 25,000 in Kindle format. (Most items are available as EPUB and Kindle, while a small number are just PDF and EPUB.)
The process to borrow a book at the Seattle Public Library’s site involves searching the catalog, selecting an item, and adding the Kindle version to your “cart,” a truly awkward metaphor — as Matt describes in his 2009 article — for assembling what you want to borrow. When you’ve assembled your cart, you go through a checkout process, after which you can download the chosen format.
Clicking the “Get for Kindle” button opens a new browser window in which you log into your Kindle account to confirm the loan. The book is automatically transferred to your preferred Kindle device, or queued for the next sync for a mobile or desktop app. After the loan is processed, Amazon shows other Kindle items that may be purchased. Not disclosed is whether either OverDrive or the library that referred the loan receives an affiliate commission for additional items purchased.
The Kindle checkout is the easiest way to borrow an ebook. The capability to read Kindle titles across all of Amazon’s free software and hardware readers is a boon, too. But the trouble — beyond OverDrive’s obtuse interface — is the limited selection. This move expands the devices for which libraries can lend books to patrons, not the number of titles available. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to find something worth borrowing in order to try out the process, and the selection is ruled by vampire, zombie,
and self-help books. The next step to help libraries is to fund increases to their digital collections — and protest against publishers that are trying to require limited-loan licenses for their ebooks. Maybe we could enlist the help of the zombies.
The problem is not necessarily OverDrive's selection - each library chooses which purchases to make. If there is something specific you are looking for, you may be able to talk to the library you are using and request certain materials.
It's true that not all publishers have given OverDrive access to their items, but this is something that is improving as time goes on.
Agreed. I wanted to make sure people didn't read this news as "all Kindle books now available through libraries as loans," although that would be a great service to offer in the future (even for a fee).
Thanks - nice info. Note: loan is a noun.
Luckily, it's also a verb. :-)
Because my library, at least, only allows three ebooks to be checked out at a time, having a way to return books is crucial, since the standard loan period at my library is three weeks. My library does offer a way to specify a shorter loan period, but the shortest available loan period is still a whole week, and I can sometimes tear through a real page-turner in a day.
The process for returning ebooks before the loan period expires varies depending on the media and the app used to read it. For example, the last time I checked the OverDrive iPad app, you couldn't return a book when you finished it. The Adobe Digital Editions app on the Mac allows for early returns of borrowed EPUBs and PDFs. With Kindle loans, you need to go to the Manage My Kindle page at Amazon; one of the choices for library books in your Kindle collection is to return the book.
>and the selection is ruled by vampire, zombie, and self-help books.
I'll bet you browsed, which is indeed useless. With Advanced Search, you can search by category and other things. Seattle has many good books in a bunch of non-fiction sections, lots of children's, sf, real mysteries. There's a wish list feature so you don't have to wade through search to refind things you stumble on, and mine now has a couple of years worth of reading queued up, with nary a zombie.
I do wish more was available as epub though. Far too many are pdf only, and I despise pdf because the lines don't wrap--I usually need giant fonts (1/2"-1" tall is not excessive).
A tip if you want to search the catalog on an iThing: use a browser that lets you set the user agent, otherwise OD will only let you browse, and you'll be be back to the vampires and zombies.
I searched and browsed, but found the selection in each category (like sci-fi, sorted by title or release date or book jacket color) to be scanty and generally uninteresting.
I just received a Kindle 3 for my birthday this month. (After yesterday's announcements, I wish I had been born in October. Sigh.) I am a Bostonian living in South Africa and I jumped at the chance to checkout some books from the Boston Public Library. I found a book that my dad had just recommended to me: "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". I am on the waiting list for that. I also found some books for my two kids and checked them out. It was amazing to be 8,000 miles from Boston and watch them show-up on my Kindle within minutes. My South African colleagues are definitely jealous.