How to donate an ebook to a library

spec · 05-14-2010, 12:10 PM

Hello,

Just wanted to share my experience of successfully donating an ebook to my local library. I'm not going to give any specifics like location, names, emails etc, as I didn't get a permission to do that and the process was very manual, therefore laborious, for the library staff. If they suddenly received a large volume of those requests (it would be great if they automated it) it might be problematic for them.

I thought I'd give it a try for 2 reasons: I check out ebooks from my local library quite frequently and I thought that instead of buying an ebook for myself (which I'd probably read only once), I should be able to buy the ebook for the library and check it out from the library whenever I want, but additionally library would share it with others. Meaning i should have the right to donate the written word in electronic form just as I do with paper form to my local library. (Hopefully one day we'll be able to do with ebooks all the things that we do with paper books today).

The library needs to be overdrive.com based - meaning your library should be on the list of libraries if you go to http://search.overdrive.com

First I located a book I wanted to check out via http://search.overdrive.com . The search result told me that it was available in other libraries, but not in my local library. On the bottom of the search page, there's "Contact us" link. I wrote Overdrive an email that I would like to donate this particular ebook to my local library. Overdrive forwarded my request to the contact at my local library. The contact person ordered the book and said I should expect an invoice from Overdrive. I got the invoice one day later and I could pay for it either by faxing (or sending a pdf) a credit card charge authorization, or mailing them a check. Same day the book appeared in http://search.overdrive.com as available in my local library and I was able to check it out.

The price of this particular book was actually twice as expensive compared to what it would cost me at bn.com (around $10 difference), but from what I gather it's not always the case. To find out how much would it cost you to donate a book, I would locate the book via http://search.overdrive.com/retail/ and look up what it says under SRP for that book. That should be the most you will have to pay for the book (Overdrive gave 20% from SRP for the book I donated, probably my library's discount). For other books I looked at, it seems they are about $1-$2 more expensive to donate via overdrive than to buy via bn.com (Example: Crichton "Lost World" ePub SRP 10.62 USD (minus library discount), bn.com ePub price $6.39)

And that's it.

I searched for similar topics before I posted it and it looks like nobody tried that before and some people said that it's not possible. Hopefully this is useful for other people with the same mindset as mine. I would encourage everyone with library access to consider donating an ebook rather than purchasing it for yourself (you cannot donate the ebook later on and most of the ebooks probably collect electronic dust inside your ereader now, so something to think about).

spec

Rich_D · 05-14-2010, 12:24 PM

Excellent! I've wondered if this were possible. I was thinking of just making a monetary donation, but specifying it be used towards ebooks.

Thanks!

batgirl · 05-14-2010, 12:52 PM

As a librarian, a big thank you. We love donations!

Please also feel free to contact the person at the library who buys ebooks and let them know specific titles, genres, authors, etc. that you would like to see.

Especially for smaller libraries like the one I work at we like to know that (1) our patrons are using this service -- which we can look up but it is always nice to get a shout out and (2) what titles they want.

zelda_pinwheel · 05-14-2010, 12:55 PM

thank you spec for this information ! that's a brilliant initiative, good on you for thinking of it and figuring out how to go about doing it.

hopefully one day i'll be able to do the same with my library ; so far, ebooks are not available there. however i've been giving them quite a lot of my paper books lately.

K8Ereader · 05-14-2010, 01:05 PM

Thank you for that info! I appreciate being able to borrow books and to be able to share them seems like such a good idea. I have the beginnings of a wish list already...

spec · 05-14-2010, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by batgirl

As a librarian, a big thank you. We love donations!

Please also feel free to contact the person at the library who buys ebooks and let them know specific titles, genres, authors, etc. that you would like to see.

Especially for smaller libraries like the one I work at we like to know that (1) our patrons are using this service -- which we can look up but it is always nice to get a shout out and (2) what titles they want.

Didn't expect any response from that side of the library counter on this forum

Do you deal with Overdrive by any chance? Ideally what I would like to see is in http://search.overdrive.com once the results are returned and the local library turns out not have the book, it would be great to see a button there that's says "donate this book to local library" and in couple of clicks with payment via paypal or google checkout the book would be donated - that would be ideal from my perspective.

abookreader · 05-14-2010, 01:14 PM

That is great information. I think I might copy and paste that and send it on to our library. I'd definitely be willing to donate an eBook or two as funds allow.

AnemicOak · 05-14-2010, 01:52 PM

Interesting. I wonder if I donated a couple hundred bucks worth if my library would take them as a start to an ebook collection. They do Overdrive, but they don't do ebooks (they do everything else OD offers

).

batgirl · 05-14-2010, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spec

Didn't expect any response from that side of the library counter on this forum

Do you deal with Overdrive by any chance? Ideally what I would like to see is in http://search.overdrive.com once the results are returned and the local library turns out not have the book, it would be great to see a button there that's says "donate this book to local library" and in couple of clicks with payment via paypal or google checkout the book would be donated - that would be ideal from my perspective.

That is a great idea! I don't deal with Overdrive directly but I will pass along your suggestion to the person on the Overdrive committee at my library.

In fact, I'm printing out your reply and putting it on her desk now.

In fact, I'd also add it would be great to see a button when a search doesn't turn up the title one is looking for that says something like "recommend your library purchase this title."

spec · 05-14-2010, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Interesting. I wonder if I donated a couple hundred bucks worth if my library would take them as a start to an ebook collection. They do Overdrive, but they don't do ebooks (they do everything else OD offers

).

Perhaps you should give your library a call (there's probably Acquisitions dept and perhaps someone responsible for electronic media) or contact them via Overdrive as I did and tell them precisely what you want to donate money towards. Perhaps you have a list of specific items.

I would assume that if a library is part of overdrive, the library can serve all the content overdrive offers (it looks to me that it is not the library that implements overdrive, but rather overdrive gives library a website and just customizes the look to library's specification).

spec · 05-14-2010, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by batgirl

In fact, I'd also add it would be great to see a button when a search doesn't turn up the title one is looking for that says something like "recommend your library purchase this title."

I think from technical perspective it's a bit different animal. That would be really a request for overdrive to acquire a license for the item (which is great by me). The reason I think that is often i run a search and a book comes up but no library is listed as having the book (meaning overdrive has a license to distribute item, but nobody bought it, as opposed to overdrive not having the license at all). Just a technicality really.

batgirl · 05-14-2010, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spec

I think from technical perspective it's a bit different animal. That would be really a request for overdrive to acquire a license for the item (which is great by me).

A bit of confusion, I meant that if your library isn't showing they own the title, that it would be nice if I, as a collection development librarian, at said librarian, could know that my patron would like to check out said ebook if the library purchased it.

But you raise another important point. A couple of the big publishers (I know Macmillan for sure) still refuse to license their ebooks to libraries at all. In other words, just because a person can purchase an ebook for their own use, it doesn't mean that it is purchasable by a library for lending.

omk3 · 05-14-2010, 02:48 PM

Excellent initiative and post, spec!
I had no idea you could donate ebooks.
Now if only more (all) libraries carried ebooks. And if only all publishers licensed their ebooks to libraries (I didn't know that, batgirl, and I think it's horrible). And if only we could donate ebooks even after we bought them for ourselves, just like paper books.
Still a long way to go, but this was definitely a good step forward, thanks!

spec · 05-14-2010, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by batgirl

In other words, just because a person can purchase an ebook for their own use, it doesn't mean that it is purchasable by a library for lending.

... or it can be donated to any library at any point after purchase similarly to what is possible and legal to do with paper books. I really hope that is only because the technology needs to catch up, not because publishers intend to make the licenses for ebooks more strict compared to paper versions.

Falbe Publishing · 05-14-2010, 02:59 PM

Spec, I think it's great you went through the trouble of figuring out how to pay to add a title to your library's selection through Overdrive.

I noticed the other day that my library is using Overdrive and I am meaning to look into downloading ebooks from the library website. I haven't done it before, but I'm a heavy library user, so it's a natural next step for me.

05-14-2010, 12:10 PM	#1
spec Zealot Posts: 107 Karma: 4160 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: nook	How to donate an ebook to a library Hello, Just wanted to share my experience of successfully donating an ebook to my local library. I'm not going to give any specifics like location, names, emails etc, as I didn't get a permission to do that and the process was very manual, therefore laborious, for the library staff. If they suddenly received a large volume of those requests (it would be great if they automated it) it might be problematic for them. I thought I'd give it a try for 2 reasons: I check out ebooks from my local library quite frequently and I thought that instead of buying an ebook for myself (which I'd probably read only once), I should be able to buy the ebook for the library and check it out from the library whenever I want, but additionally library would share it with others. Meaning i should have the right to donate the written word in electronic form just as I do with paper form to my local library. (Hopefully one day we'll be able to do with ebooks all the things that we do with paper books today). The library needs to be overdrive.com based - meaning your library should be on the list of libraries if you go to http://search.overdrive.com First I located a book I wanted to check out via http://search.overdrive.com . The search result told me that it was available in other libraries, but not in my local library. On the bottom of the search page, there's "Contact us" link. I wrote Overdrive an email that I would like to donate this particular ebook to my local library. Overdrive forwarded my request to the contact at my local library. The contact person ordered the book and said I should expect an invoice from Overdrive. I got the invoice one day later and I could pay for it either by faxing (or sending a pdf) a credit card charge authorization, or mailing them a check. Same day the book appeared in http://search.overdrive.com as available in my local library and I was able to check it out. The price of this particular book was actually twice as expensive compared to what it would cost me at bn.com (around $10 difference), but from what I gather it's not always the case. To find out how much would it cost you to donate a book, I would locate the book via http://search.overdrive.com/retail/ and look up what it says under SRP for that book. That should be the most you will have to pay for the book (Overdrive gave 20% from SRP for the book I donated, probably my library's discount). For other books I looked at, it seems they are about $1-$2 more expensive to donate via overdrive than to buy via bn.com (Example: Crichton "Lost World" ePub SRP 10.62 USD (minus library discount), bn.com ePub price $6.39) And that's it. I searched for similar topics before I posted it and it looks like nobody tried that before and some people said that it's not possible. Hopefully this is useful for other people with the same mindset as mine. I would encourage everyone with library access to consider donating an ebook rather than purchasing it for yourself (you cannot donate the ebook later on and most of the ebooks probably collect electronic dust inside your ereader now, so something to think about). spec

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05-14-2010, 12:24 PM	#2
Rich_D Fanatic Posts: 581 Karma: 1314896 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Pittsburgh, PA USA Device: Android phone, Kobo Glo HD, nook ST with Glo (backup)	Excellent! I've wondered if this were possible. I was thinking of just making a monetary donation, but specifying it be used towards ebooks. Thanks!

05-14-2010, 12:52 PM	#3
batgirl Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 126 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Chicago Device: PocketBook360	As a librarian, a big thank you. We love donations! Please also feel free to contact the person at the library who buys ebooks and let them know specific titles, genres, authors, etc. that you would like to see. Especially for smaller libraries like the one I work at we like to know that (1) our patrons are using this service -- which we can look up but it is always nice to get a shout out and (2) what titles they want.

05-14-2010, 12:55 PM	#4
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	thank you spec for this information ! that's a brilliant initiative, good on you for thinking of it and figuring out how to go about doing it. hopefully one day i'll be able to do the same with my library ; so far, ebooks are not available there. however i've been giving them quite a lot of my paper books lately.

05-14-2010, 01:05 PM	#5
K8Ereader Connoisseur Posts: 63 Karma: 350 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Norfolk UK Device: Sony PRS-600	Thank you for that info! I appreciate being able to borrow books and to be able to share them seems like such a good idea. I have the beginnings of a wish list already...

05-14-2010, 01:14 PM	#7
abookreader Wizard Posts: 1,516 Karma: 2567610 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindles - Keyboard, Fire, 2-US, iPhone, iPAD	That is great information. I think I might copy and paste that and send it on to our library. I'd definitely be willing to donate an eBook or two as funds allow.

05-14-2010, 01:52 PM	#8
AnemicOak Bookaholic Posts: 14,391 Karma: 54969924 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Minnesota Device: iPad Mini 4, AuraHD, iPhone XR +	Interesting. I wonder if I donated a couple hundred bucks worth if my library would take them as a start to an ebook collection. They do Overdrive, but they don't do ebooks (they do everything else OD offers ).

05-14-2010, 02:48 PM	#13
omk3 Wizard Posts: 1,454 Karma: 37243 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Europe Device: pocketbook 360, kindle 4	Excellent initiative and post, spec! I had no idea you could donate ebooks. Now if only more (all) libraries carried ebooks. And if only all publishers licensed their ebooks to libraries (I didn't know that, batgirl, and I think it's horrible). And if only we could donate ebooks even after we bought them for ourselves, just like paper books. Still a long way to go, but this was definitely a good step forward, thanks!

05-14-2010, 02:59 PM	#15
Falbe Publishing Gadget Slave Posts: 264 Karma: 600001 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Battle Creek, Michigan Device: Sony PRS505SC	Spec, I think it's great you went through the trouble of figuring out how to pay to add a title to your library's selection through Overdrive. I noticed the other day that my library is using Overdrive and I am meaning to look into downloading ebooks from the library website. I haven't done it before, but I'm a heavy library user, so it's a natural next step for me.

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