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Quite possibly. Libraries/Amazon need to get up to speed on this. I have a Kindle, as does my brother, my mum, and my nan. My mum is a member of a library, and
by grogs 15y ago
Quite possibly. Libraries/Amazon need to get up to speed on this. I have a Kindle, as does my brother, my mum, and my nan.
My mum is a member of a library, and they have ebook which she can download and read on her laptop. However, she can't read it on the Kindle, as they are distributed as DRM protected ePub's.
To put it on her Kindle she would have to remove the DRM and convert to mobi... But she doesn't need, or even want, the DRM removed.
Also, second-hand books. I could very easily get hold of a Dan Drown's The Lost Symbol for £0.50 in a charity shop/second hand book store. But it costs £4.96 to get the Kindle edition. There's also no way to trade/sell/give Kindle books to other people.
Removing DRM but then deleting within loan period- or pirating and donating £0.50 to charity - for ebooks seems morally equivalent to me. But it's illegal/break of copyright.
- 01Michael10 15y agoThere is nothing stopping libraries from offering Kindle versions of eBooks. I work for the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System in the IT dept. and we do offer Kindle books. The problem, like every thing else, is that it costs money. The more proprietary eBook formats you have the higher the cost there is to stock another format for a particular book. Implementing Kindle support was also way more problematic then offering ePubs and audio books so not every library system will have the ability (or money) to do so... Personally, I think it's not really the demise of the Public Library but more the demise of our society due to the lack of proper priorities.