[hwlester]

Originally Posted by brdwygurl

Not an ebook.....but another perk to the Free Library of Philadelphia is their "freegal" music service. You can download, and save to your computer 3 free songs a week from the sony catalog. They have all kinds of music, including current hits

checkout the link under music downloads http://search.freelibrary.org/digitalmedia.cfm

Use your FLP card and pin

Apparently one of my local libraries subscribes to this as well, but I don't know my PIN, so I'm going to have to call them to get access...

Did you notice the Freading service? FLP (and my local library) offer this and apparently you get 2 tokens a month to "rent" books with (Adobe DRM EPUB and PDF). Looks like most of the books cost 1 or 2 credits although I saw several Dilbert books that were 4. It's unclear if the credits expire at the end of the month or you can build them up. I got a Dilbert book with my FLP credits. Once I get my PIN from my local one I should be able to tell more.

Update: Figured out my local library's PIN and logged into both Freegal and Freading with it. Looks like Freading is run by the same people as Freegal. I have 5 credits on that Freading account, but since this is the first time I've logged in there, I'm not sure if those are built up or new (I've been a patron of this library since January 2011).

Update 2: Updated the post to indicate that the tokens aren't used to "purchase" the book, but more to "rent" it. From the FAQ:

The Adobe Digital Editions software will limit your access to each ebook for a 2 week initial period. You can extend the loan period for one 2 week period by going back to the book display on the website and hitting the download button again. You will see that the token value has decreased since the initial loan. Most renewals are free.

As an example, the Dilbert book I got for two tokens lets me renew for free. The Dilbert book I got for 4 tokens lets me renew for 1 token.

As far as the number and value of tokens, the FAQ says this:

Tokens are a virtual currency that you use to exchange for downloads. Your library gives you a weekly allotment which appears in the upper right hand corner of the home page after you login. When you choose a book, the amount of tokens labeled on the book is deducted from your account.

There are three different token costs of a book, downloads cost 4, 2 or 1 token depending on the value assigned by the publisher. In most cases newly published books are 4 tokens, then after a time period they drop to 2, and then after another time period they drop to 1. So in general, the token value is based on how new a book is. In some cases though, a publisher may have chosen a different criteria such as popularity.

Unused tokens roll over each week for a four week period, a week being defined as a Monday to Sunday period of seven days, beginning at 12:01AM Monday, New York time, and going to midnight on Sunday. At the end of the fourth week from the time you first logged in, unused tokens are cleaned out of your account, except for your original weekly allotment. The rolling over process then starts all over again, as a new four week cycle has begun. Your subscribing library decides the amount of tokens that users will have in their weekly allotment.