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OK, so what this appears to be is a bookstore, run by Overdrive, that allows you and me to buy ebooks for our own pleasure, use and licensing. We can choose to buy at Amazon or B&N or Kobo or Overdrive.
Books purchased at Overdrive generate a "portion of the sale" margin (profit) which can be donated to a library of your choice, provided they participate. The library doesn't get the book you bought: you do. It gets some cash added to the bill.
There's nothing wrong with that as far as it goes but it is much more direct to simply find a way to donate $50 to your local library (and maybe even get a tax receipt).
What I would really like to see is an easy way for a library patron to help fund specific titles, or a bundle of titles, to be added to the local collection. My library (Toronto) is doing a decent job of adding ePub titles to the collection -- at least there are new titles appearing every week or two (not huge volumes, but there is movement). The drawback is I had no idea there were so many books being written about vampires .... I'd be delighted to help fund the acquisition of some traditional mysteries -- like Agatha Christie (the library has none to read, several to listen to) -- or the mysteries of home grown mystery publisher Dundurn Books which would add Canadian (and local) content.
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