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Originally Posted by fduniho
One reason for this is probably that they all use Overdrive, which is owned by Kobo, an ereader company whose own books are all EPUB books.
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Minor nit with your comment. Kobo never owned Overdrive. Rakuten which owns Kobo at one point owned Overdrive but Rakuten sold Overdrive to KKR. The transaction was completed about 2 years ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fduniho
Another factor may be that more ereader companies support EPUB than Kindle books. Nook, Kobo, and Google Play Books all sell EPUB books, but only Amazon sells Kindle books. So, when there is a choice between just getting a Kindle book or an EPUB book, this may give librarians a reason to choose the EPUB book.
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Another issue is that an epub book is fulfilled by the library's Overdrive connection while a Kindle ebook is fulfilled by Amazon at an extra cost to the library. In Canada, the extra cost and the privacy issues were the main reasons that Canadian libraries do not offer Kindle format loans. You want to find out what books have been checked out and by whom? Get a court order for very specific information to compel the library to give you that information. Amazon? We'll sell you that information.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fduniho
A third reason, which I think applies to the New York Public Library, is that some of its ebooks are available from Cloud Library rather than Overdrive, and Cloud Library does not include Kindle books. Other libraries may get books through similar services that do not include any Kindle books.
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I'm not sure how much of an effect that reasoning would have. For the most part, being a rather cynical sort, it likely comes down to how much money could they make offering Kindle format loans after paying Amazon their gelt.