Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
The thing is that they WERE getting free access and now it's being taken away. Whoever decides such things thought they were worthy of special treatment before; why not continue to give them special treatment by giving them a discount now? Especially the active military.
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Well, it isn't taken away for those who already had a card, at least not yet. I think those who already had the senior or military cards when the policy changed were grandfathered in. That may go away eventually - every time I sign in (we have a military vet free card) I half expect it to be declined, but so far it's still good. And this change only affects non-residents, of course.
And I suspect it's purely a financial thing. The non-resident card was only $15/year 3-4 years ago, then it went up to $35. Now it's $50, and they offer fewer services than they used to (besides lowering the limit of checkouts, Freegal, their free music download service, was dropped this year). I can't blame them, really. It was lovely that they offered it free for seniors and military when they could afford it, clearly they can't afford it any longer.
And by the way, each branch of the military has its own Overdrive library set up for eBooks and audiobooks, so the active duty military really doesn't "need" the free FLP access.
It was a much handier perk for military retirees who perhaps didn't live near a military base and had difficulty get signed up for access to their service's Overdrive collection.