3M Cloud Library Goes Live at St Paul Public Library

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Wow! My MIL lives in Hennepin County. Wonder if she will get me a library card?

They have a pretty good selection of books...
http://hclib.lib.overdrive.com

[polly]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If it's cloud-based, does that imply online reading, rather than downloads?

When accessed via computer, it dumps the file in the Digital Editions folder. The Kansas library website says that it's compatible with Kobos and Nooks, but it will work with anything that uses ADE.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Wow! My MIL lives in Hennepin County. Wonder if she will get me a library card?

If you think that's something, the three library systems I use most often allow 20, 25, and 30 titles to be checked out; with 10, 25, and 20 holds respectively.

[Ed_Grey]

I keep getting a failure message when I try to check out a book. The message makes it seem like even though the book is listed as available, it's been checked out by someone else. This occurs with any book I try to check out.

It worked again later, but this suggests to me that this piece of 3M software, like other 3M software I've encountered over the years, is not ready for public use.

[polly]

Which library are you trying to access? The 3M software works fine on both my android tablet and my computer; I haven't had any issues with checking out books in either location.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by polly

Which library are you trying to access? The 3M software works fine on both my android tablet and my computer; I haven't had any issues with checking out books in either location.

What are your impressions of 3M so far; and how does it compare to OverDrive in terms of ease-of-use?

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

If you think that's something, the three library systems I use most often allow 20, 25, and 30 titles to be checked out; with 10, 25, and 20 holds respectively.

Wow. Are you married? Looking to be adopted?

[Kumabjorn]

Monkey always in need of banana provider.

[polly]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

What are your impressions of 3M so far; and how does it compare to OverDrive in terms of ease-of-use?

In many ways it's easier. I like that it remembers who I am when I launch it. No navigating to the website and logging on required. I really like that when I search it, I only get ebooks back and not audiobooks as happens with OverDrive. Of course, it came just as I purchased a PRS T1, which works with the three OverDrive libraries I can access but not 3M. Books that I borrow from the 3M library still show up in my Digital Editions folder, so I can sideload them as needed.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

We can do 15 of each through OverDrive in Hennepin County right now.

Yeah, for the Denver Library system we can have 20 checked out, not sure about holds...

For the Aurora Library system it is 3 checked out, 3 holds

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Wow. Are you married? Looking to be adopted?

Everybody needs a monkey. You might be able to ply him with bananas.

[Ed_Grey]

I've almost never been able to get a book on my Hold list checked out when it becomes available. I usually log in about once a day, and that doesn't help. There's also no email notice about held books becoming available.

Usually the books are simply gone from my Hold list. Today, one of the books on hold showed up as available, but when I clicked Check Out, I got an error message saying that I couldn't get it, and that maybe someone else got it.

This thing is so not ready for prime time!

Whatever problems there might be with Overdrive, at least everything seems to work as it's supposed to.

[polly]

I think your problem might be specific to your library's implementation. I have not problems with putting holds on books, notification when the book is available, followed by checking it out within 72 hours with my Kansas library. Books stay on my hold list until I check them out. Not many books yet in my library, but the software seems sound.

[Ed_Grey]

The latest version of the software I can use is a beta version from March 28. Maybe you have a later version.

More problems:

1) I have several books in my Hold list that have been "Available in less than 1 day" for about a week and still not available in reality.

2) There's no wish list.

3) With the same search each time, the "Load More" button is unpredictable. It shows wildly different numbers of books using the same search word.

4) The Search function seems to search all the text in a book, so you end up with long lists of irrelevant books.

4a) Not all instances of a search word show up. For instance, I can't search on "eggers" and find all of Dave Eggers's books in the system. "The Wild Things" doesn't appear. I found that last book by searching on some trivial word like "that." Lots of otherwise invisible books show up by searching for trivial words.

5) Memory leak - if you run this thing for a while, it keeps taking up more and more memory, and often using up lots of CPU when it should be idle.

6) Downloads fail too often, and have to restart from the beginning. (Overdrive can pick up from where it left off, using the temp download file created by Adobe Digital Editions.)

7) Books I download sometimes disappear within a day. The books get downloaded into my Digital Editions folder, which is also used for Overdrive books that get read by Adobe Digital Editions software.

[Ed_Grey]

It's now been about two weeks that I've had some books listed as "available in less than 1 day."