Amazon to launch Library Lending

[FF2]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Well, that's one less Kindle user to be using libraries. Or for that matter any other eBooks.

Careful or I'll spew matzoh all over the forum!!!!

[pendragginp]

Yes, great news!

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

There is a website that you can go to that lets you seeall of your notes and bookmarks. So you should be able to check your notes from a library book without the book being on your device.

I think.

If not, and you think the notes are important, you can copy them into a word document and save them that way, before the book goes away.

I'm wondering about this too.

I'm glad they noted that we'll be able to highlight, etc, so they won't be restricted, like samples are.

But whether or not Amazon will have them up for us to see on our My Kindle stuff page in the cloud, or locally in our My Clippings file, without buying the book, will depend on a couple of things, I guess.

First, whether or not we've chosen the option to have our stuff backed up on the cloud to begin with. (I never have.)

Second, while I expect our highlights will stay in the "my clippings" file, just like they do for other deleted books, I'm not sure if bookmarks, notes will...?

Do our notes go into the My Clippings file, or just the .mbp file?

And I can't remember what happens with the .mbp file when we delete a book from the Kindle... does it always stay on the Kindle in case we put the book back on? I think it does.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

-snip-time-sensitive DRM always did function on the Kindle. Just have to give Overdrive access to Whispernet and the DRM server. Overdrive library mobi's on Kindles is not a new concept. -snip-

Everything's already in place, they just have to build a few back-end on-ramps. ...

Yes, I think the way it will work is that the only part Overdrive will play will be to send a request to Amazon to Send Book X to user Y, and Amazon will send it - the same book, same ASIN, just wrapped in the special, expirable, DRM always used by mobi. Just like with lended books.

It also sounds like it'll be sent to our account, so it'll be in the archive, easily available for every device on the account. Otherwise, Overdrive would have to know our PIDs/Aps to send it to.

This is going to be so much easier than messing with ADE or Mobipocket PIDs.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Yup, I know. And I can tell you, as an author, when I make a decision about a publisher, this is a significant consideration.

As an author, would you go with any of the agency 6 and let them over price your eBook or would you try to go with one of them and try to get a reasonable eBook price in the contract?

[Fbone]

I wonder if this explains the dramatic price increases Overdrive will be charging libraries starting 2012. The annual account administration fees are doubling for some libraries next year and then doubling again for 2013.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

That has to make JSWolf very happy.

If the content is what's relevant and not just the format, I'm hoping when we check out an eBook from the library that we can pick from the available Overdrive formats. That way if the library has PDF when an other format exists we can get one of the other formats instead of having to request that another format be purchased.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by FF2

Careful or I'll spew matzoh all over the forum!!!!

Matzoh... I know that... fake unleavened bread which it has absolutely no resemblance to. I am Jewish and I know that Matzoh is not really unleavened bread. What we should have instead is bread without the yeast since what the Jews had back then was bread that had all the ingredients yet did no rise. It has nothing to do with flour.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I wonder if this explains the dramatic price increases Overdrive will be charging libraries starting 2012. The annual account administration fees are doubling for some libraries next year and then doubling again for 2013.

Why are they doubling only for some libraries? Is this because of Amazon?

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If the content is what's relevant and not just the format, I'm hoping when we check out an eBook from the library that we can pick from the available Overdrive formats. That way if the library has PDF when an other format exists we can get one of the other formats instead of having to request that another format be purchased.

If there is a copy to be checked out, you'll get your choice of formats to download it in. No matter what format you check it out in, no one else can check that copy out while you have it.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why are they doubling only for some libraries? Is this because of Amazon?

First sentence.

[CHunter_Author]

This sounds like it is going to be a mess.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I wonder if this explains the dramatic price increases Overdrive will be charging libraries starting 2012. The annual account administration fees are doubling for some libraries next year and then doubling again for 2013.

No, more likely that's because they have a monopoly...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

First sentence.

Which has nothing to do with my questions.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Ken Stuart

This can only mean one of two things:

1 - All Kindles and Kindle apps will be updated to read Epub files. This will still be separated out as "for Kindle", possibly for some minor technical differences, but mostly for Marketing reasons - to keep Average Joe blissfully ignorant of the concept of an open format.

OR

2 - The "checking out of a book that is available" will become 100% Accounting. Neither Publishers nor Libraries actually care about the text of the books, they only care about Authors and Titles (and sales). Much like Microsoft Windows, a library buying 3 copies of a Stephen King will actually be buying 3 licenses. Then Overdrive (or even Amazon themselves) can store and serve the actual physical books in whatever format is required by the Patron. Given how small ebooks are, relative to current hard drives and broadband speeds, the actual ebooks for all the Libraries could be stored on a web server in a Janitor's hall closet in Moscow...

Amazon says:

If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer's annotations and bookmarks will be preserved.

The only way this works is if the lending library ebook is exactly the same ebook that you get from the Kindle store. So this excludes your #1 and makes #2 very likely. For example, you might only get a ticket from the library which is fulfilled by Amazon's servers. I think this is the most likely approach, with the only realistic alternative (although not very likely) the delivery of a time limited but otherwise not locked down AZW (or TOPAZ).

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

"Customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 local libraries to read on Kindle and free Kindle reading apps, Whispersyncing of notes, highlights and last page read to work for Kindle library books..."

Click for more: Amazon to Launch Library Lending for Kindle Books

I'm getting that old deja' vu feeling. This sounds like "Overdrive" which is already being used by libraries coast to coast. How do they convince those libraries that already have several copies of a particular title that work with a couple of dozen readers, to buy more copies for the Kindle? Not to mention installing another software package to run along side the Overdrive they're already using.