Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenophon
I recently wrote to the folks at the Free Library of Philadelphia, suggesting that they ask Overdrive to enable a "donate this ebook to the library" button. The idea is that the book would be purchased for the library, added to their Overdrive collection, and then immediately made available for the purchasing patron to check out. And, of course, the library would generate a donation acknowledgement letter for US tax purposes.
The librarian in charge of digital acquisitions responded saying that he/she thought it was a "fantastic idea." The only downside mentioned is that "overdrive sells some books that are not appropriate for a public library collection", so they would need to do something about that. I presume these inappropriate books are porn, but that's purely a guess on my part.
The librarian expects to see the overdrive folks at a conference this week or next, and said that he/she would suggest it to Overdrive as a feature that would be "very important" to them.
A very pleasant interaction overall, with a strongly positive response from the Library!
Xenophon
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I'm glad to hear you got such a positive response from your library system. The response I got from mine was lukewarm at best. I asked about the possibility of donating ebooks either by making a monetary donation to the library that is designated to purchase a specific ebook, or by contacting Overdrive as was mentioned at the beginning of this thread. I was told that I could recommend books to be purchased (it's only a request, no guarantees), and I could also make a donation, but they don't seem to have any way to connect the two actions to be sure the book I want is purchased. Definitely not the response I was hoping for. I have access to another library system that has just started carrying ebooks, so I think I'll contact them - hopefully they'll be more open to the idea.