e books from public library?

[Jayco52]

Does anyone know if borrowing e books from public library is available in the UK?

Message was edited by: StartTheCar

[PuppyDog]

Good news! Warrington Libraries (Cheshire, England) has just launched an ebook lending service to co-oincide with World Book Day.

I have asked, and been told, that membership of Warrington Libraries is open to anyone resident in the UK; you must first join this to access the ebook lending service. Can't check this out as I live in Cheshire, so am an existing member and have already booked out my first ebook ! Loan is for 14 days.

The lending service is operated by Overdrive.

Happy month, everyone.

PuppyDog.

PS : The loan service is not available for Kindle ereaders.

Message was edited by: PuppyDog

Message was edited by: PuppyDog

[PuppyDog]

A couple of questions about ebook loan, please.

I successfully borrowed an ebook and have finished reading it.

In ReaderLibrary, I noticed that right clicking on the book gave me the option to 'Return borrowed item'. This I did, and the book disappeared from the ReaderLibrary. However, this left the book on my ereader.

I wondered if this was now marked for deletion, so I connected the reader to the PC, but the book remained, showing 11 days until timeout. Being of an investigative mind, I borrowed the (same) book again. This time, I connected the ereader to ReaderLibrary before taking the 'Return borrowed item' option. Again, the book disappeared from RL but not the ereader. So :

1. How does one delete a book from the ereader?

2. If I don't delete the book and just let it time out, what happens? Am I just unable to read the book after the timeout time OR does timeout implement a delete action?

Thought for the day.

This seems to be an anomoly in the lending process. The local library implements a maximum of 4 concurrent ebook loans. With what I've described above, it seems possible to i) borrow the ebook ii) transfer to the ereader iii) return the borrowed item immediately iv) borrow another book and repeat the process 'ad infinitum' which would give the capability of borrowing far more than 4 books at a time. Is there some other smart process which will prevent this? (As stated in another posting, the local library is using Overdrive to implement the ebook loan scheme.)

Cheers

PuppyDog

[Drumzman]

Hi PuppyDog,

I've made some pretty similar observations based on my own experience of borrowing eBooks from my local library (York).

This is my take on the situation: you are quite right that you can return a borrowed eBook in Reader Library without it being deleted from your Reader device itself.  Actually, it seems that you do have to manually delete the eBook to remove it from the device yourself, so to answer your first question:

1. You can delete in one of two ways: connect the Reader to your computer and use the Reader Library software to navigate to the eBook on your Reader to delete it or, when you have the eBook open on your Reader, use the Utilities or Options menu (depending on which Reader model you have) to find the ‘Delete Book’ facility).
   
2. What happens if you don’t delete the eBook?  This has happened to me with eBooks I’ve borrowed from my library, and basically all that happens is they ‘time-out’.  They don’t delete automatically, but if you try to open the eBook you just get a message similar to if you were trying to read an eBook that was not authorised with your Adobe ID – I can’t remember the exact wording off-hand, but it’s something like “you are not authorised to read…..”.  The bottom line is you won’t be able to read them after they time-out, so you might as well delete it as it’ll just be taking space up in your Reader’s memory.
   

And so to the anomaly!

I think you’re right about the process you describe, and in theory it could mean that you could ‘borrow’ more than the limit of titles imposed by the library at one time (my library is 4 books too); and I’m pretty sure there is no smart way of preventing you from doing this:smileyconfused:.  However, rather than ‘cheating’ your library so to speak, my view is that as we are borrowing a licence to read the eBook in effect, and we can’t stop this from timing-out, then we're not doing anyone any harm.

In fact, my personal view is that what you propose is actually a very considerate thing to do.  The reason I think this is due to the waiting list system that libraries operate.  With my library, if the eBook I want is already out, then I have the option to join a waiting list and they e-mail me when it’s available and I have a couple of days to respond and download the eBook or I lose it to the next person in the queue.  If we were talking about a physical book, then I would have no option but to wait for the person currently borrowing it to return it.  But as we are talking about an eBook (licence) here, what I could do (as you suggest), is borrow the eBook, transfer it to my Reader, and then return the eBook from the Reader Library immediately.  This way I still get to read the eBook I’ve borrowed for 21 days or whatever, but the library gets their licence back almost straight away (instead of waiting the full loan period) and can lend it to the next person on the waiting list!:smileycool:  So, if my assumptions are correct, I’m sure this would only be seen as quite a considerate thing to do for us eBorrowers!

Hope this all makes sense anyway, and I’d be interested to hear if you agree with my assessment!

Cheers!:smileygrin:

[PuppyDog]

Hi, Drumzman

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

I have deleted the loan book now - thanks for that tip. I had looked in Options before but not with the book open. The 'Delete Book' option is context sensitive, so only appears when the book is open, which is why I didn't see it before.

Loaned some more books last night and used the download, transfer, return immediately process. I can confirm that everything works as one would expect, with the library showing no books loaned after the return. So I've got books which will automatically time out on the reader but the 'master' is available for others to loan. I agree with you - I  think this is a good way to operate and that's how I'm going to use the loan scheme.

I'm chuffed to bits that the local library has started this and I will use it - indeed, it's why I chose a Sony rather than a Kindle. I do hope most strongly, though, that this is not now used as an excuse to start cutting back/closing the actual libraries, which offer a whole host of services other than book loan, not to mention that there are lots of people who do not have/do not want an ereader.

Happy reading

PuppyDog

[Cymraes]

hi there

I downloaded a book from Cardiff Libraries for the first time over the weekend and it seemed a painless process. It arrived safely in my library, and transferred to the reader.

I can open and read the book both from the library and from the reader  - but only when the reader is connected to the computer, and I can read it on the computer screen. I can't open it on the reader itself - just get a Page Error message.

Any ideas? Only 17 days before it expires!

Cheers

[Drumzman]

Hi Cymraes,

Sounds a bit odd! Just so that I understand, when you say you open the eBook from the Reader, do you mean through the Reader Library software so that you are looking at it on your computer screen?

If so, and then when you try to look at the eBook on the Reader when disconnected from your computer you get a page error message, it does sound like the file has not transferred successfully (or possibly and Adobe authorisation problem).  First I think I'd try deleting the eBook on your Reader (using the Options menu while you have the page error message - or you can use your computer to do this in Reader Library) and then trying to drag and drop the loaned eBook from your computer to your Reader again.  Check under Status in the left hand menu (I'm assuming you're still using Reader Library rather than Reader for PC software?) as this will tell you if the file has been transferred successfully.

Hope that works.

[PuppyDog]

I haven't had the  message you've had, but I did once get the 'Protected by Adobe Digital Permissions' or whatever it says message when trying to read a downloaded local library book. This was puzzling, as I had dowloaded three library ebooks and the other two worked perfectly. So, as Dumzman suggests, I deleted the offending book and retransferred from Reader Library. All now works fine.

Go figure, as our American friends say.

If deleting from the reader and retransferring from reader Library doesn't work, try :

- deleting the book from the ereader again

- returning the book from ReaderLibrary

- borrow /download it again from the Cardiff library

- transfer the book to the ereader again

- Try to read the book again.

I would say that if you still can't read it after this, then the file is corrupt, so I'd try to borrow a  different book which I would use to test out the whole download/transfer/read process.

HTH

PuppyDog

Message was edited by: PuppyDog

Message was edited by: PuppyDog

[predio56]

hello,

but without book you canlesson on music.

Look at what i found;

IS that not clever like a book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fb33_yq0Ds

nice evening

[PuppyDog]

I spoke too soon! Cymraes has a point, I think.

I downloaded another couple of books last night and put them on my ereader this morning. Both work fine, but the borrowed local library book that I've been reading for three days now refuses to open! All I get is a "Protected by Adobe Digital Management" banner.

The book is now not accessible - and since I returned the book to the local library (as per our discussion earlier!) I tried to borrow it again, only to find that it's now been borrowed by someone else. Murphy's Law!

Clearly there is something amiss with DRM and the facility to borrow books. I think that, instead of returning library books immediately they are transferred to the reader, I'm going to have to keep them in Reader Library until I've finished the book. I've also taken the precaution of transferring the books on to my wife's ereader as a belt and braces option.

Anyone else had this sort of problem with ebooks from a public library?

Cheers

PuppyDog

[PuppyDog]

Solved the "Protected by Adobe Digital Management" problem! It's a symptom of the way we discussed using the lending library in earlier posts. Here's how it happens. (Not all the steps are necessary - they just prove what caused the problem.)

• Download a book (Book1) into ReaderLibrary (RL), then transfer book Book1 to ereader. All works OK
• Return borrowed item from RL. Book1 disappears from RL but can still be read on ereader.
• (Optional step to prove theory) Connect ereader to RL, then disconnect. No effect; Book1 can still be read on ereadereven though it doesn't exist in RL.
• Borrow another book (Book2) and download into RL.
• (Optional step to prove theory) Connect ereader to RL then disconnect. Book1 still OK to read.
• Connect ereader again and transfer Book2. Book2 can be read on the ereader but Book1 will now only display the  "Protected by Adobe Digital Management" error.

Thinking about it, it's obvious what the problem is and where it occurs - it's transferring book 2 after the original Book1 has been returned.

When transferring Book2 to the ereader, RL and the ereader clearly synchronise - and when that happens, Book 1 is found to be missing from RL, so RL stops you reading your copy on the ereader. (I say RL - it's almost certainly the DRM software that does it, but what does it doesn't matter - something does.)

So - downloading a book, transferring it to the ereader and then returning the book immediately afterwards only works if you are not going to transfer another loan book on to your ereader before you've finished reading the original book.

Our thoughts about 'helping' other people by not hanging on to a loan book do work, but only in a given set of circumstances!

Hope this helps.

PuppyDog

PS : My wife solved this, not me!