[monophoto]

With the encouragement of my computer-geek son, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite two years ago, and have been using it to read books that I check out from our public library using the Overdrive service. I managed that process using the browser on my desktop 'puter and the Overdrive web site. There was a learning curve, but I eventually beat it into submission.

Recently, I bought an Amazon Fire HD8 tablet - more as a toy than anything else. It came equipped with Kindle, and one of the first things that I noticed was that books sent to my Kindle reader also were accessible in the Kindle app on my tablet, and that there was a feature to keep books synchronized as I read them on the two devices. That's neat. I could use the Silk browser on the tablet to access the Overdrive website although my main access remained via my desktop.

But then I noticed an announcement that Overdrive was being deprecated in 2023, and suggesting that users should convert to Libby. So I downloaded the Libby app on my tablet, and found that there is a corresponding Libby website that I can access from my desktop. So far, most of my use has been via the Libby website (using my desktop), and my experience is that it is far less intuitive than the Overdrive website).

But to be quite frank, I find this entire matter to be somewhatly confusing. (Understand that I am 77 years old, so I may be suffering from brain atrophy. But I'm also a retired engineer who expects technical issues to be explained in detail - which is far from the case here.)

I understand the difference between app and website, and as long as I have access to a browser, I don't think single-function apps are all that important. So could someone explain clearly what is about to happen here? What is actually being deprecated - the Overdrive function, the Overdrive web site, or the Overdrive app?

If the Overdrive function will continue, and the Overdrive web site will still be available, then I would be perfectly happy to consider the Libby app to be just another example of a rather seriously flawed, non-intuitive app created by a programmer who clearly never actually uses it. In that situation, I will simply continue to use the Overdrive web site via browser on either my laptop or tablet.

However, it the plan is for the Overdrive web site to go away leaving Libby (either app or web site) as the means of access to the Overdrive function, then I suppose I will have to suck it up and struggle with Libby's eccentricities. Unhappily, I might add.