OverDrive
E-library lending comes to the Walled Garden
iOS App of the Week Apple’s iBooks Store is as slick – and expensive – as you’d expect any Apple product to be, but it’s not the only source of digital books for the iPhone and iPad.
Alongside apps from commercial rivals such as Amazon's Kindle, I recently discovered an app called OverDrive that gives you online access to the UK’s public lending libraries - or "idea stores" as they are moronically referred to these days.
OverDrive lists the books you've borrowed (left) and presents them for reading (right)
Many of Britain's public libraries allow you to borrow e-books and MP3 audiobooks – who’d have thought it? You’ll need an existing library membership, but then all you have to do is locate your library in the app’s ‘Library’ menu and use your membership details to log in.
The app then flips you into the Safari web browser in order to view the books that are available from your local library service and select the titles you want.
Locate your local library in OverDrive (left) then go see what's on offer (right)
You can put up to seven titles in your online ‘basket’ and then download them into the OverDrive app, which acts as the e-book reader for your selections. It’s a terrific idea, and it made my day when I instantly came across a Clive Barker audiobook that I’d never even heard of.
There are some limitations, though. The range of available digital titles is much smaller than you’d get in your local library. More surprising, perhaps is the fact that, like a physical library, the online library only has a limited number of copies of each digital title, so you may have to reserve a title and wait a while for it to be returned.
And, of course, the titles are only lent to you for a few days – though you do have the option of renewing the loan and downloading the book again if you haven’t finished it yet.
So check out OverDrive – and support your local library while you still bloody well have one! ®
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COMMENTS
eBook lending restrictions
The reason there are only a number of copies available is down to licencing restrictions imposed by the publisher. Understandable imo. What I find less comprehensible is the fact that if you had dug deeper you would have also found that the books may only be loaned a certain number of times. To imitate the wear a physicall book aquires over time I believe, but still ridiculous for a digital copy.
Sort of
It's not exactly to imitate the wear received by a physical book. It's to prop up the profits of publishing houses that are scared witless by the move to digital. We covered this back in March at
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/03/02/library_e_books_get_time_limit/
and there's also more on my own blog at http://gonedigital.net/tag/ebooks/
Good start
Seems like a great start and once it gets featured on more places like theReg and shared around Facebook, it could be a real winner. More users = more libraries coming on board and improved software.
A great way to modernise the UK library system.
Geography Failure
A lot of the libraries that were listed as being in the south west.. are actually in the south east. Not a good start.
Also, typically, my local library doesn't understand digital anything. It's still in the stone age :(
Apple restrictions
Overdrive lending libraries application uses Adobe DRM which is also notable in Apple's walled garden.
