Kindle Goes to the Library

After months of anticipation, it has finally happened: Amazon has unwrapped their library lending feature for the Kindle. The good news is that it works quite well. The bad news is that you may not have access. Amazon states that there are 11,000 libraries across the US that participate in the OverDrive program that makes lending possible. In Michigan there are only 25 libraries that participate. If you’re outside the US, you’re out of luck for now.

After hearing the rumor that the feature was available, I went to the Michigan site and saw the icon shown above. Clicking it takes you to a search result that shows Kindle enabled books. In our library system, there are 3781 Kindle books available (Amazon says that the selection will vary by library). Since word got out, very few of those books are available right now but you can place a reserve on the book and you’ll be notified by e-mail when the book is available. Here is an example:

In our case, you can add the book to a wish list, place a hold (reserve) on the book, or check out the book. As you can see, it shows how many copies there are, how many of those are available, and how many people are on the waiting list ahead of you. My assumption is that this would be the same for any libraries using OverDrive but I suppose I could be wrong. The nice thing about the wish list is that you can look at the wish list and immediately see the status of all the books on your list.

Selection

How is the selection? Not bad. It’s a bit light on non-fiction/historical books and there are few, if any, books on fringe topics. So, if you want books on conspiracy theories, entheogens, alien visitations, psychic powers, or books along those lines, you can forget about it (in Michigan, anyway). If you want popular fiction, you should have plenty of options. It seems to me that the selection is more heavily weighted toward female readers but most readers of fiction should find something of interest.

Looking at a Wikipedia listing of top selling authors (plus a few additional authors that seem popular), I decided to see how a sampling of the English authors fared in the Kindle library :

Then, I checked a few of the non-fiction categories:

As you can see, our non-fiction selection is much more limited than the fiction selection. Hell, the tag team of Debbie Macomber and James Patterson beats most non-fiction categories that I sampled. And, for the record, I’m aware that “Classics” is actually a fiction category; I included it because there might be people interested in the availability of the classics.

Checking Out

Here is how the process works. First, find a book. As mentioned above, you’ll be able to tell from the listing whether the book is currently available for checkout or not. To find something, I did a search for books that were available. The book below came up. I don’t know anything about the book but it will serve as our example.

Since the book shows available, you just click the link to add the Kindle Book to your bookbag. You can continue shopping around or you can click the link to go to your bookbag. Anything that sits in your bookbag longer than 30 minutes will be returned to the library collection for others to find. I don’t know if all libraries are the same but ours limits you to 10 ebooks out at a time.

When you check your bookbag, you’ll see everything you’ve selected. Choose Proceed to Checkout for the next screen in the process.

If you aren’t already logged in, you’ll need to provide your credentials.

Note that the lending period is 14 days. We also have an option for 7 days but 14 is the default. According to Amazon, your library determines the length of the lending period.

When you confirm the checkout, you’ll see the books you’re checking out and when the lending period ends. The next step is to click Get for Kindle. This is where it gets interesting. At that point, you are redirected to Amazon to get the book(s).

Click the button to Get library book. If you’re connected via wi-fi, the book will immediately download to your device (it doesn’t have to be a Kindle, you can also use the Kindle app on other devices…but we’ve already discussed this…you NEED one.).

Finally, you see this confirmation page. If you’re using wi-fi, you’re done (note that it doesn’t work via 3G). If you want to download the book and move it to your device via USB, this page has the link for the download.

A few remaining items of interest:

• Your notes and highlights are retained after the book is returned.
• 3 days before the book is set to expire, you will receive a reminder via e-mail.
• On the day the book expires, you’ll receive another e-mail

Once the book has expired, it’s gone. If you want it again, you’ll have to get back in the queue for the book; there is no renewal option.

The End

I did not read the book above, but left it checked out to see what happens as the loan draws to a close. Below are the two e-mails you receive from Amazon. The first warns you that you have 3 days left and the other lets you know that the loan has ended:

The final screenshots are from the Kindle. You’ll see that you get a new entry in your Home screen:

If you open that entry, you will see this:

Given the selection available through our library, the ability to check out books on the Kindle would not convince me to buy one. However, as one who has bitched about ebook pricing and who enjoys the occasional popular fiction book while traveling, this feature is great for me. The books I’m most likely to complain about in terms of pricing are the types of books that are available. This allows me to have my cake and eat it too… I can use the library for those Kindle books I would refuse to buy and I can focus my purchases on the books for which I’m willing to pay the ebook premium.

What are your thoughts/experiences with the program?