Tag Archives: library

Did you know your library can’t buy eBooks from many publishers?

Sadly, unlike a regular person, a library cannot pay Amazon or Barnes & Noble for an eBook and then lend it out to people. We can buy a printed book from these companies, stick it on the shelf, and lend it out–but digital content is treated differently by the publishers and the companies who manage digital content licensing. We desperately want to offer you these eBooks. But the companies won’t let us. As your library, we commit to continuing advocacy for change in these policies.

For more info and to see who to contact, please see bit.ly/noebooks

via San Rafael Public Library – What’s New – Did you know your library can’t buy eBooks from many publishers?.

Amazon’s Kindle to Make Library E-Books Available

 

Kindle
Found via mccune934's Flickr page

“Libraries are a critical part of our communities,” Jay Marine, director of Kindle at Amazon, said in a statement. “And we’re excited to be making Kindle books available at more than 11,000 local libraries around the country.”

The introduction of the Kindle, the biggest-selling e-reader, opens up library e-books to a wider audience, heightening the fears of publishers that many customers will turn to libraries for reading material. If that happens, e-book buyers could become e-book borrowers, leading to a potentially damaging loss of revenue for an industry grappling with a profound shift in consumer reading habits.

via NYTimes.com