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I stepped up my use of my library's ereader app (the same Libby mentioned in the article) during covid and was shocked that there weren't any public domain book

• sjy 6y ago
  What would the side project consist of? A huge range of public domain books have been accessible on gutenberg.org and archive.org for many years now, in standard formats that you can use on any device without installing a proprietary “library app.”
  • topkai22 6y ago
    Sure, and I use them. However, I went to library systems for the last the counties I’ve lived in and none of them present Gutenberg or associated projects as an options when I looked for eBooks. I think I know why- the process of getting a Gutenberg book working on iOS is surprisingly difficult (multiple steps requiring a priori knowledge) and, more importantly for this conversation, my library is totally cut out of the loop and loses its relationship with me. That matters to them for funding purposes (politicians love to see higher utilization and lower costs per loan.) It matters to me because my library isn’t able to add any value to the experience by, for example, recommending great public domain kids books because they don’t have a channel to deliver them to me. While the bones of what I’d like to see does appear to exist- an eReader app that puts a better layer over free ePubs. However, it excludes the libraries. I think libraries can add value with organization, recommendations and reading lists, and a good app could provide cross device sync and history (like kindle).