4 ms·

I love the idea of OverDrive but I've yet to have success with it. Either the book I'm interested in isn't available or it's unavailable for weeks. I don't have

I love the idea of OverDrive but I've yet to have success with it. Either the book I'm interested in isn't available or it's unavailable for weeks. I don't have a ton of time to read or to drop what I am reading when something becomes available, so I usually just wind up buying the book if I'm really excited about it. Granted, my library is not part of a major city's system but it's also not what I'd call a small one. I'd be curious to know how NYC or Chicago compare, as those are where people I know have had very positive experiences with these options.

aardvarkr 10mo ago
If you read one book a quarter then yeah it’s not for you. If you read one book a week you can queue up fifty good books and wait for that one to come available at some point in the year.
- komali2 10mo ago
  I used to do that but then like 10 books would come available at the same time and I'd feel all this pressure to read them as fast as possible. In the end I gave up and just download now.
y1n0 10mo ago
What works for me with overdrive is using holds and then when it comes available, if I'm not ready to read I let someone skip ahead of me. That way I'm still next in line but it gives me a few days until someone else finishes the book and then it pings me again.
IlikeKitties 10mo ago
Just Pirate stuff on Annas Archive. Jumping through these ridiculous hoops for less than a floppy disk of data is just a humiliation ritual.
- kelnos 10mo ago
  Authors should get paid for their work, though. Publishers, too, to be honest (they also do a lot of work and usually run on thin margins). Waiting in line in a library app is annoying, but the waiting signals demand, which drives the library to buy more copies to circulate.
  - IlikeKitties 10mo ago
    > Waiting in line in a library app is annoying, but the waiting signals demand, which drives the library to buy more copies to circulate. This is not true for digital libraries. They do not "buy more copies" to circulate. They don't physically send you an USB Stick with a copy of the book and you send that back without making a copy. They can send everyone "in line" as many copies as they want. Whats the size of an ebook these days? 1MB? How many trillion copies could you make in a day? You have to wait in line to hopefully someday maybe be allowed to read a copy of a book while meta torrents a petabyte of books for their AI usage. This is nothing but a humiliation ritual.
    - Marsymars 10mo ago
      > They do not "buy more copies" to circulate. That is exactly how ebook licenses for libraries work.
      - IlikeKitties 10mo ago
        No, that is not how ebook licenses work. They buy more LICENSES not more COPIES.
  - komali2 10mo ago
    If you care about the author, navigate to their website and buy a book directly from them, or a tshirt or something. Then they'll actually get paid, unlike from a library loan, or the scraps that Amazon gives them (unless the author depends on Amazon's print on demand for all prints of their books in which case, I guess buy it from Amazon).
    - 10mo ago

aardvarkr 10mo ago

If you read one book a quarter then yeah it’s not for you. If you read one book a week you can queue up fifty good books and wait for that one to come available at some point in the year.

komali2 10mo ago
I used to do that but then like 10 books would come available at the same time and I'd feel all this pressure to read them as fast as possible. In the end I gave up and just download now.

y1n0 10mo ago

What works for me with overdrive is using holds and then when it comes available, if I'm not ready to read I let someone skip ahead of me. That way I'm still next in line but it gives me a few days until someone else finishes the book and then it pings me again.

IlikeKitties 10mo ago

Just Pirate stuff on Annas Archive. Jumping through these ridiculous hoops for less than a floppy disk of data is just a humiliation ritual.

kelnos 10mo ago
Authors should get paid for their work, though. Publishers, too, to be honest (they also do a lot of work and usually run on thin margins). Waiting in line in a library app is annoying, but the waiting signals demand, which drives the library to buy more copies to circulate.
- IlikeKitties 10mo ago
  > Waiting in line in a library app is annoying, but the waiting signals demand, which drives the library to buy more copies to circulate. This is not true for digital libraries. They do not "buy more copies" to circulate. They don't physically send you an USB Stick with a copy of the book and you send that back without making a copy. They can send everyone "in line" as many copies as they want. Whats the size of an ebook these days? 1MB? How many trillion copies could you make in a day? You have to wait in line to hopefully someday maybe be allowed to read a copy of a book while meta torrents a petabyte of books for their AI usage. This is nothing but a humiliation ritual.
  - Marsymars 10mo ago
    > They do not "buy more copies" to circulate. That is exactly how ebook licenses for libraries work.
    - IlikeKitties 10mo ago
      No, that is not how ebook licenses work. They buy more LICENSES not more COPIES.
- komali2 10mo ago
  If you care about the author, navigate to their website and buy a book directly from them, or a tshirt or something. Then they'll actually get paid, unlike from a library loan, or the scraps that Amazon gives them (unless the author depends on Amazon's print on demand for all prints of their books in which case, I guess buy it from Amazon).
  - 10mo ago