4 ms·

"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local lib

by tw04 12y ago

"The Netflix for books" - you mean the public library? I'm astounded how few young people seem to have any clue what their libraries offer. FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, you never have to set foot in the building.

HaloZero 12y ago
Libraries (at least in the US) have an artificial cap on the # of books they have. Which means it doesn't satisfy that "I want to read this now" craving that Netflix has. A popular book can have a multi-week wait in the SF public library.
- m3talridl3y 12y ago
  What do you mean by limit? Shelf space?
  - Thrymr 12y ago
    The libraries have a license for a particular number of copies of each title that can be checked out at one time. They pay for this license, at high rates for popular books (more than hardcovers).
joshuapants 12y ago
I'm a big fan of my local library, unfortunately their ebook system is very annoying. They've partnered with some service that only allows you to access books through an iOS app (so I can't read on e-ink) and it seems that each book is just a pdf delivered to the app, so you can't change font size or the way the words flow. On top of that, if they even have the book you want you often have to wait several weeks before it's available for you to actually download.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Yup. My local library only has so many copies of ebooks, and they're almost always checked out. One book I was looking for had a four month wait list. For an ebook! Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave.
  - stinkytaco 12y ago
    >Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave. As someone who deals with e-books for libraries, I feel that frustration, but I also understand where publishers are coming from. They are doing everything they can to hold onto a business model they have been successful with. They also have authors to deal with, who have been successful with the same model and control the production of the product, to some extent. That said, I suspect many libraries would be willing to license e-books like they license journal content: on an all access subscription model.
- bduerst 12y ago
  That could be a manufacturer problem - i.e. Amazon being uncooperative with allowing kindle users to read books from sources other than the kindle store. If you can get an epub or mobi version of the book you borrowed, you can use Calibre [1] to put it on your e-ink device. You can also email books to your kindle, but I've had mixed success with that. [1] http://calibre-ebook.com/ http://calibre-ebook.com/
  - joshuapants 12y ago
    Unfortunately, on this end it's entirely a software issue. No way to get anything downloaded except through the app. I wonder if I had a jailbroken iPad if I could somehow extract the PDFs it downloads, but even then it wouldn't be a pleasant experience on the Kindle. I do like Calibre, which I've used to get Project Gutenberg books among others onto it.
icebraining 12y ago
Ours doesn't have ebooks nor audiobooks (at least downloadable, maybe it has CDs), and the books it does have are translated, which is great for the general accessibility by the population, but a loss for those of us who can read the original versions.
jasode 12y ago
> >FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, The smug overconfidence ("ffs"?) of your reply tells me that many who are spreading the good word about public libraries are overestating their offerings. (But then again, others are ignorant that ebooks exist at public libraries so maybe all of the blind spots from both sides evens out.) The caveat you're leaving out is that the public libraries have a limited ebook catalog. I'll use Atlanta GA public libary as an example. It's a major city with a decent sized library. Look at the Michael Chabon ebooks available from their public library: http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=chabon%2C+michael&qf=FORMAT%09Format%09ER%09Electronic+Resources http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=c... The public library certain has all of his books in hardcopy format but for ebooks, it's just 2 titles. Compare with the 13 titles on Oyster: https://www.oysterbooks.com/author/NakTfeyKUXxFcvzHC2JKFD https://www.oysterbooks.com/author/NakTfeyKUXxFcvzHC2JKFD Again, look at another popular book, "The Goldfinch": http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=TITLE%3D%22The+goldfinch%22 http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=T... There is no ebook available at all from Atlanta's library. But Oyster has it: https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/Kf4mghNUTfnJSiJS758h5V/the-goldfinch https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/Kf4mghNUTfnJSiJS758h5V/the-... The public library works great for those who don't have a specific reading list and would be satisified with "whatever" limited selection they happen to have. (Yes, you can request your public library to buy a new book but that's a separate administrative step and their committee has to review it before adding it to the budget.) To summarize the disadvantages of ebooks at public libraries mentioned by others: -- limited selection of titles -- of the titles the library actually has in the collection, there is a cap on # of simultaneous checkouts from the "virtual inventory". This will result in a wait list for an ebook if it's a popular title -- the ebooks have a "due date" and the DRM of the ebook will enforce that -- some libraries only offer DRM epub formats that are not readable on Kindle (unless the user is tech savvy with 3rd party conversion software)
- stinkytaco 12y ago
  You can request a title and more and more libraries are leaning on patron driven acquisition (PDA) for collection development. The library I am employed at buys almost everything that comes in via recommendation. That said, limited availability is a much more complicated problem than budgeting or selection. With print books there's a very well established workflow and discount model. Wholesalers who sell to libraries provide steep (up to 40%) discounts and a very polished workflow for selecting titles (we have standing orders for best-sellers, top authors, big series, etc, that save us hours of work). Ebook vendors don't offer discounts because publishers control prices and the selection model is not nearly as polished. Additionally, all major publishers have some limitation on their ebooks. For some vendors we pay up to 3x the cost of a retail hardcover and for others we are limited on the number of times the title can check out (26 or 52 times, depending on the vendor). Still others simply sell on a 1 or 5 year lease model. Libraries are still trying to adjust their budget models and workflows to fir these new limitations we've never had to deal with before. So yes, I love libraries, but it's not nearly as simple as "your library has ebooks" and that's a sad state.

by tw04 12y ago

HaloZero 12y ago

Libraries (at least in the US) have an artificial cap on the # of books they have. Which means it doesn't satisfy that "I want to read this now" craving that Netflix has. A popular book can have a multi-week wait in the SF public library.

m3talridl3y 12y ago
What do you mean by limit? Shelf space?
- Thrymr 12y ago
  The libraries have a license for a particular number of copies of each title that can be checked out at one time. They pay for this license, at high rates for popular books (more than hardcovers).

joshuapants 12y ago

I'm a big fan of my local library, unfortunately their ebook system is very annoying. They've partnered with some service that only allows you to access books through an iOS app (so I can't read on e-ink) and it seems that each book is just a pdf delivered to the app, so you can't change font size or the way the words flow. On top of that, if they even have the book you want you often have to wait several weeks before it's available for you to actually download.

freehunter 12y ago
Yup. My local library only has so many copies of ebooks, and they're almost always checked out. One book I was looking for had a four month wait list. For an ebook! Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave.
- stinkytaco 12y ago
  >Hoarding ebooks like physical properties is not a good way to behave. As someone who deals with e-books for libraries, I feel that frustration, but I also understand where publishers are coming from. They are doing everything they can to hold onto a business model they have been successful with. They also have authors to deal with, who have been successful with the same model and control the production of the product, to some extent. That said, I suspect many libraries would be willing to license e-books like they license journal content: on an all access subscription model.
bduerst 12y ago
That could be a manufacturer problem - i.e. Amazon being uncooperative with allowing kindle users to read books from sources other than the kindle store. If you can get an epub or mobi version of the book you borrowed, you can use Calibre [1] to put it on your e-ink device. You can also email books to your kindle, but I've had mixed success with that. [1] http://calibre-ebook.com/ http://calibre-ebook.com/
- joshuapants 12y ago
  Unfortunately, on this end it's entirely a software issue. No way to get anything downloaded except through the app. I wonder if I had a jailbroken iPad if I could somehow extract the PDFs it downloads, but even then it wouldn't be a pleasant experience on the Kindle. I do like Calibre, which I've used to get Project Gutenberg books among others onto it.

icebraining 12y ago

Ours doesn't have ebooks nor audiobooks (at least downloadable, maybe it has CDs), and the books it does have are translated, which is great for the general accessibility by the population, but a loss for those of us who can read the original versions.

jasode 12y ago

> >FFS, our local library lets you "borrow" e-books and audiobooks online, The smug overconfidence ("ffs"?) of your reply tells me that many who are spreading the good word about public libraries are overestating their offerings. (But then again, others are ignorant that ebooks exist at public libraries so maybe all of the blind spots from both sides evens out.) The caveat you're leaving out is that the public libraries have a limited ebook catalog. I'll use Atlanta GA public libary as an example. It's a major city with a decent sized library. Look at the Michael Chabon ebooks available from their public library: http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=chabon%2C+michael&qf=FORMAT%09Format%09ER%09Electronic+Resources http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=c... The public library certain has all of his books in hardcopy format but for ebooks, it's just 2 titles. Compare with the 13 titles on Oyster: https://www.oysterbooks.com/author/NakTfeyKUXxFcvzHC2JKFD https://www.oysterbooks.com/author/NakTfeyKUXxFcvzHC2JKFD Again, look at another popular book, "The Goldfinch": http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=TITLE%3D%22The+goldfinch%22 http://afpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/search/results?qu=T... There is no ebook available at all from Atlanta's library. But Oyster has it: https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/Kf4mghNUTfnJSiJS758h5V/the-goldfinch https://www.oysterbooks.com/book/Kf4mghNUTfnJSiJS758h5V/the-... The public library works great for those who don't have a specific reading list and would be satisified with "whatever" limited selection they happen to have. (Yes, you can request your public library to buy a new book but that's a separate administrative step and their committee has to review it before adding it to the budget.) To summarize the disadvantages of ebooks at public libraries mentioned by others: -- limited selection of titles -- of the titles the library actually has in the collection, there is a cap on # of simultaneous checkouts from the "virtual inventory". This will result in a wait list for an ebook if it's a popular title -- the ebooks have a "due date" and the DRM of the ebook will enforce that -- some libraries only offer DRM epub formats that are not readable on Kindle (unless the user is tech savvy with 3rd party conversion software)

stinkytaco 12y ago
You can request a title and more and more libraries are leaning on patron driven acquisition (PDA) for collection development. The library I am employed at buys almost everything that comes in via recommendation. That said, limited availability is a much more complicated problem than budgeting or selection. With print books there's a very well established workflow and discount model. Wholesalers who sell to libraries provide steep (up to 40%) discounts and a very polished workflow for selecting titles (we have standing orders for best-sellers, top authors, big series, etc, that save us hours of work). Ebook vendors don't offer discounts because publishers control prices and the selection model is not nearly as polished. Additionally, all major publishers have some limitation on their ebooks. For some vendors we pay up to 3x the cost of a retail hardcover and for others we are limited on the number of times the title can check out (26 or 52 times, depending on the vendor). Still others simply sell on a 1 or 5 year lease model. Libraries are still trying to adjust their budget models and workflows to fir these new limitations we've never had to deal with before. So yes, I love libraries, but it's not nearly as simple as "your library has ebooks" and that's a sad state.