It’s a crazy e-book news sort of day here today with Kindle and Amazon news and underwater reading and a law suit. Can’t get more exciting than that!
First up, Kindle and Amazon. All you Kindle owners out there who have been waiting since earlier this year for Kindle e-books to be available for download lending from your library, it is getting closer to happening! The Kindle library lending program is now in beta in Seattle libraries. Some of you may recall that Kindle and OverDrive made a deal earlier this year to provide Kindle formated books for lending through the public library. My public library uses OverDrive for their e-books and I have been checking a couple times a month hoping I could finally borrow e-books. Since I don’t live in Seattle I guess I will have to wait a little longer but hopefully not much longer.
In other Kindle and Amazon news, have you heard that Amazon is supposedly in talks with publishers to provide a sort of Netflix service for e-books? The service would be available to Amazon Prime customers as part of their $79 annual membership fee. Titles on offer would not be brand new ones, but older titles though it isn’t clear how old old is. I can’t imagine that this would be something I would go in for. I mean, I don’t read all that fast and I’m not a Prime member so I don’t see that it would be such a bargain. What about you? If this service actually becomes a reality, would you sign up?
I just heard recently that the Author’s Guild is now suing HathiTrust. HathiTrust is a group of about 50 universities whose books are being scanned by Google. They have pooled their books into one digital repository. Only the books in the public domain are accessible to those outside of the universities. The Author’s Guild, however, has decided that the universities are holding unauthorized scans of copyright protected books. The suit probably has something to do with the sinking of the Google Book Settlement and an announcement from HathiTrust that it is going to start offering access to orphan works. Ah, the mess that is copyright law.
And finally, if you’ve ever been diving in 300 feet of water and thought, wow, I’d really love to read a good book right about now, you are in luck. Gates, a specialist in underwater equipment cases, has custom designed a case for a Sony reader (skip to about a minute into the video)
I totally want one of those cases for my Sony reader, so I can read (safely) in the bathtub, even though my touchscreen probably wouldn’t work.
I don’t see the Netflix model taking off, but then, I don’t see why people actually go for it wrt movies — as it is, I suspect most members pay fees that aren’t worth their while if they gave it sufficient thought. But I guess Amazon is counting on that. (I;m anti-Amazon on DRM principle, so take this comment with a grain of salt.)
I just heard about the Kindle and Libraries on the news this evening – very excited, hope it’ll work for me. This was great info Stef.
I may be buying a brick and mortar book store. I’m not kidding. Wife and I are seriously considering it. Must be nuts, but it’s exciting at the same time.
Ah, e-books! This issue could be very valuable to me. First, Japanese homes are not so large. Space being at a premium, I try to give away books, but often can’t find the people who want them. Also, just yesterday I agreed to take possession of someone elses unwanted books. (…If I build taller shelves…) Second, in Japan, finding English books is tough. The places which have them carry limited selections and the prices are high. There are many books I would read on a whim, if I could get them into my hot little hands. Perhaps a good service is what I need.
The Amazon service might be good but I, like you, am not that fast of a reader.
Mister Litlove bought me a waterproof book a couple of years back. It’s great – sits beside the bath and affords me many happy browsing hours. Not that I usually take it under the water, though! It’s tempting to make up a list of books for deep sea reading – Moby Dick, of course. Anything about Captain Nemo, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly…possibly Mutiny on the Bounty?
Isabella, I wonder why no company has made a bath and beach protection case for e-readers yet. They’d probably do well with them. My husband and I have netflix streaming and no TV so our subscription is totally worthwhile because we use it a lot. That’s the thing though with a service like that, you’d need to use it a lot for it to pay for itself and I would not use a Kindle service like that often enough.
Diane, thanks! Hopefully both you and I will soon be happily borrowing Kindle books from the library
Tom, with the demise of Borders and B&N pushing the Nook these days, you might not be so very crazy. Best of luck to you!
Bikkuri, e-books are pretty handy when you are a big reader and don’t have much space. My sister lives in a smal apartment in Los Angeles and when she buys books these days they are always e-books. And in your situation with the addition of the difficulties of finding books in English, e-books just might be the thing.
Litlove, LOL, a waterproof book for grown-ups? I’ve given them as gifts for kids but didn’t know you could get one for adults. How fun! And it is definitely tempting to try and put together a deep sea reading list!
I’d love to be able to use the library for my Kindle! Some libraries do this for the Nook. Looking forward to this actually happening.
eReaders are The Devil. (I may be a paper lover.)
Jenclair, hopefully soon Kindle books will appear at your library!
Carrie, The Devil might be stretching it a bit, but your passion for paper always makes me smile
Are you accusing me of hyperbole?
Hmm. Possible. B-a-r-e-l-y possible.
No, I’d never dream of such a thing!
The Amazon deal doesn’t interest me in the least. Spend money to rent books? No, thanks! Not when I have access to libraries that can get me just about any book I want for free!
Rebecca, I know, I don’t understand how Amazon thinks people will want to spend money to rent books when they can be had for free from the library. Perhaps they are counting on the artificial scarcity of library e-books plus a larger selection, to make people willing to pay. I guess time will tell if people fall for it.
Next time I go deep sea diving it’s good to know I can take a book with me. Now I can set my mind at ease!
I can check out ebooks from the library for my Nook-have only done it once. I was reading it and didn’t realize it was due back–went to open it up and it had been deleted from my reader. I much prefer the good old honest way of returning a book late and getting a fine. I’m too slow a reader for library ebooks I’ve decided (no renewals unfortunately).
Danielle, I know, such a relief, eh? How disconcerting to forget the due date and then suddenly find your book has disappeared. I imagine it cuts into the amount of fines a library collects since people like you and I don’t fudge an extra day or two to finish the book and then pay the overdue fine.