MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - need help managing my eLibrary with students

CarolynBG · 07-22-2011, 04:40 PM

Elizilla, thanks for your response and questions and suggestions. (Susan, pls see below :-) )

I just spoke with Chris at Amazon. According to Chris, I can indeed have as many devices, including Kindles, registered to one account as I wish. Where the limit is is in how many devices a given book may be on at a time (as I already knew and Susan confirms). Most books have a limit set by the publisher of being on 6 devices at a time (though there are exceptions in both directions), but once a book has been archived or deleted from the device or whatever, then a different device on the account can use it, at least according to Chris, confirming my questions to him about that. (FWIW, there is a story on edukindle about a teacher registering 80 Kindles to one account! a huge logistical mess necessitating a very careful production line...)

As for gift cards, I'm not entirely sure how that would work, but I am also not positive that gift cards are even an allowed purchase under the university procurement card rules.

Chris did not know of a way to turn off the wifi (but I did read somewhere it was possible so I'm still going to try to find someone in tech support who can do that) but he also suggested the idea of enabling the credit card only when purchases need to be made and then disabling it again.

Thank you for bringing up the concern, however; you forced me to verify what I had been assuming all along, and it's good to know it for certain rather than just assume! :-)

Susan: your post came in while I was composing this one :-)
I am going to get as many free books appropriate to this age group as possible. I am also going to start with approximately 200 bought-from-Amazon books that are interesting to this age group (on top of every free book I can lay my hands on), with money to buy more if a given child either wants to read more in a series, for instance, or just isn't finding books of interest. We've now got approx. $2400 in the grant for ebooks (more if I manage to save money on covers, for example, or need less for translation than I thought I would). I've priced out a fairly good-sized sample and they are approximately $5-6 per book, on average, with variation, for the books we are looking at. And then when the Harry Potter books come out, depending on cost and how many Kindles can have a copy at once, I'll get those too.

Which brings us back to the original question of how much managing do I want to do, and how to do it? I think it might be useful to know that all 6 copies of Magic Treehouse Book 1 were out and that 3 kids were waiting for it, for instance, and to know what books a given child has and how long they've had it. It's just finding out if there's any good way to do that already invented, or am I going to be inventing that from scratch.

Thank you both for your inputs. It IS helpful to me, believe me.

Carolyn

07-22-2011, 04:40 PM	#6
CarolynBG Enthusiast Posts: 32 Karma: 21076 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Colorado Device: Nook, iPad, iPod, mac computer, various eReader apps on iPad and iPod	Elizilla, thanks for your response and questions and suggestions. (Susan, pls see below :-) ) I just spoke with Chris at Amazon. According to Chris, I can indeed have as many devices, including Kindles, registered to one account as I wish. Where the limit is is in how many devices a given book may be on at a time (as I already knew and Susan confirms). Most books have a limit set by the publisher of being on 6 devices at a time (though there are exceptions in both directions), but once a book has been archived or deleted from the device or whatever, then a different device on the account can use it, at least according to Chris, confirming my questions to him about that. (FWIW, there is a story on edukindle about a teacher registering 80 Kindles to one account! a huge logistical mess necessitating a very careful production line...) As for gift cards, I'm not entirely sure how that would work, but I am also not positive that gift cards are even an allowed purchase under the university procurement card rules. Chris did not know of a way to turn off the wifi (but I did read somewhere it was possible so I'm still going to try to find someone in tech support who can do that) but he also suggested the idea of enabling the credit card only when purchases need to be made and then disabling it again. Thank you for bringing up the concern, however; you forced me to verify what I had been assuming all along, and it's good to know it for certain rather than just assume! :-) Susan: your post came in while I was composing this one :-) I am going to get as many free books appropriate to this age group as possible. I am also going to start with approximately 200 bought-from-Amazon books that are interesting to this age group (on top of every free book I can lay my hands on), with money to buy more if a given child either wants to read more in a series, for instance, or just isn't finding books of interest. We've now got approx. $2400 in the grant for ebooks (more if I manage to save money on covers, for example, or need less for translation than I thought I would). I've priced out a fairly good-sized sample and they are approximately $5-6 per book, on average, with variation, for the books we are looking at. And then when the Harry Potter books come out, depending on cost and how many Kindles can have a copy at once, I'll get those too. Which brings us back to the original question of how much managing do I want to do, and how to do it? I think it might be useful to know that all 6 copies of Magic Treehouse Book 1 were out and that 3 kids were waiting for it, for instance, and to know what books a given child has and how long they've had it. It's just finding out if there's any good way to do that already invented, or am I going to be inventing that from scratch. Thank you both for your inputs. It IS helpful to me, believe me. Carolyn