Thinking of upgrading

[LittleRach]

I have a Kobo, I've had one or another for years now. (I think I've got an HD or a Glo or something currently). It's getting a bit old, and needs resetting every few days now (never used to do that), and the light is getting a bit temperamental. So I thought I might request a new one for Christmas.

I'm really tempted by the Aura One, mainly for the ability to borrow library books. But our library has just changed from Overdrive to Borrowbox - does anyone know if it's compatible?

And how smoothly does the borrowing work?

I'd much rather use the library than buy, but I don't have a computer (just an iPad), and our work computers won't let you download stuff, so I can't use that, so I end up having to try to get my husband or daughter to sync it all on the PC if I currently want to borrow a book, and so it's just way too much trouble.

[salamanderjuice]

The Aura One borrowing only works with Overdrive unfortunately.

That said it's pretty smooth you just search the store like a normal Kobo and you tap the 3 dots and you can see if it's in the library. If it's available you can check it out and it downloads and acts exactly like it was purchased from the store. If not you can place a hold. The due date is visible in the menu and you can easily return books. It also keeps a preview version and shows it as finished so you can still know you read it.

[LittleRach]

Thanks. That sounds really good. I definitely prefer to borrow from the library when I can. But very annoying that my library has decided to move away from overdrive.

Mind you, lots of other libraries still use it, so I guess I'll just join those instead.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

If it's available you can check it out and it downloads and acts exactly like it was purchased from the store. If not you can place a hold.

This is what annoys me about digital books and libraries. It's a digital file. It's literally always available! There should never be a reason to have to place a hold on it. I can understand only having access to it for a limited time, but anybody who wants to borrow it should be able to borrow it at any time without restriction. It's one of the reasons my wife gave up trying to borrow books on her ereader because it was such a hassle for something that should have been the very definition of convenience. Now she never touches her Kobo and just borrows books the old fashioned way. Why wait weeks for a digital download to become "available' when a physical copy is just a drive across town away?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

This is what annoys me about digital books and libraries. It's a digital file. It's literally always available! There should never be a reason to have to place a hold on it. I can understand only having access to it for a limited time, but anybody who wants to borrow it should be able to borrow it at any time without restriction. It's one of the reasons my wife gave up trying to borrow books on her ereader because it was such a hassle for something that should have been the very definition of convenience. Now she never touches her Kobo and just borrows books the old fashioned way. Why wait weeks for a digital download to become "available' when a physical copy is just a drive across town away?

Last time I looked, the library gets to pay extra for each concurrent loan. Much the same as physical books, CDs, etc. -- you pay extra for the extra copies. Perhaps your local libraries have unlimited budgets? Around here, the budgets are limited (and limiting).

As for the physical copy being available? Unless you are planning on purchasing the book, my experience has been that popular books are popular books in paper or electronic form and you will be waiting for either. When I look at a couple of books that are arriving at the local library in early September, one has 23 holds on 4 paper copies and 18 holds on 4 electronic copies while the other has 34 holds on 5 paper copies and 31 holds on 5 electronic copies.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Last time I looked, the library gets to pay extra for each concurrent loan. Much the same as physical books, CDs, etc. -- you pay extra for the extra copies. Perhaps your local libraries have unlimited budgets? Around here, the budgets are limited (and limiting).

As for the physical copy being available? Unless you are planning on purchasing the book, my experience has been that popular books are popular books in paper or electronic form and you will be waiting for either. When I look at a couple of books that are arriving at the local library in early September, one has 23 holds on 4 paper copies and 18 holds on 4 electronic copies while the other has 34 holds on 5 paper copies and 31 holds on 5 electronic copies.

You're not telling me anything I don't know. It's still stupid that limits are placed on digital files when there's no practical reason for it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

You're not telling me anything I don't know. It's still stupid that limits are placed on digital files when there's no practical reason for it.

No disagreement on the stupidity but no practical reason? Profits are not practical?

[filmo]

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Profits are not practical?

I suppose it depends on your definition of practicality.

[TuxGirl]

Fwiw, the borrowing works great *if* your library is set up correctly. I was able to borrow fine from freelibrary.org for a week test, but my library is still trying to figure out why it doesn't work on their library. (although i have to give props to the guy helping me out. he has been pretty awesome and has a ticket open to overdrive to try to debug what is happening.)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Profits are not practical?

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

I suppose it depends on your definition of practicality.

My definition of practicality as it relates to profits is based on the sad experience that the vast majority of entities that fail to produce profits fail to continue providing products. I want authors to make enough money writing so they will continue writing. See H. Beam Piper for a sad example of what can happen otherwise.

As one friend of mine said while folding his family business, "we didn't start out to be a non-profit, it just happened."

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by TuxGirl

Fwiw, the borrowing works great *if* your library is set up correctly. I was able to borrow fine from freelibrary.org for a week test, but my library is still trying to figure out why it doesn't work on their library. (although i have to give props to the guy helping me out. he has been pretty awesome and has a ticket open to overdrive to try to debug what is happening.)

What is the problem borrowing from Overdrive? are you trying to borrow ePub or Kindle eBooks?

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by DNSB

My definition of practicality as it relates to profits is based on the sad experience that the vast majority of entities that fail to produce profits fail to continue providing products. I want authors to make enough money writing so they will continue writing. See H. Beam Piper for a sad example of what can happen otherwise.

As one friend of mine said while folding his family business, "we didn't start out to be a non-profit, it just happened."

OK, but you haven't demonstrated how a library "lending" digital files without restriction harms business.

Or for that matter, you may as well argue that libraries in general hurt the book sales industry because it gives people a reason not to buy books themselves.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

OK, but you haven't demonstrated how a library "lending" digital files without restriction harms business.

What's to demonstrate? The library pays more to have "multiple" copies to loan which increases the payments to the publisher and author which improves the chances of them remaining in business.

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

Or for that matter, you may as well argue that libraries in general hurt the book sales industry because it gives people a reason not to buy books themselves.

I seem to remember rather heated discussions about that exact topic when Baen was starting their Free Library. One counter example used by Eric Flint was that his first book, Mother of Demons, which had increased sales and sell-through after being placed in the Free Library.

It seems to me to be pretty much a fact that most authors linger in obscurity so gaining exposure through libraries and/or books borrowed from friends which allows potential readers to try for free is good for both sides. Free is a price that most readers are willing to pay to try an unknown author in the hopes of not finding that the book would have better left on the slush pile while giving a book away in hopes of improving future sales seems to work for many authors.

[TuxGirl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What is the problem borrowing from Overdrive? are you trying to borrow ePub or Kindle eBooks?

JSWolf,

I think you have actually tried to help me with this before. From what I can tell, it seems to be that my library is not correctly communicating with Kobo. When I try to check a book out from the KA1, the Kobo gives an error saying that something went wrong. The book never downloads, but does show as checked out if I go to my library website. It never shows up on my Kobo library, though.

Freelibrary.org gave me a 1-week membership for testing purposes, and when I used that, everything worked perfectly, so I am fairly certain I am doing everything correctly on my end. My library has contacted their overdrive reps, and are hoping to be able to resolve the issue with their help, but overdrive is being rather slow about their response time.

The library says they are on the latest version of the overdrive software. I'm not sure whether there is a configuration issue on the library side, or if there is a versioning error or what. When I spoke with Kobo, they were rather unhelpful.

(As a probably related side note, I cannot search for books that are available in my library, or filter by the library, but I do get the borrow with overdrive option in the menu on the book if it is in the library.)

I would prefer using the library integration to get library books onto my KA1 because I am on Linux, and while ADE does kind of work in wine, it is extremely clunky, and I shouldn't need to use that method.

I am actually impressed with how much effort my contact at the library has been putting into this, since I am the only person he has ever seen with a Kobo, as they are pretty rare here. The fact that he is poking at it at all is pretty awesome to me.