Library Support for eBook Lending
There’s probably just one thing that all book lovers have in common; we read many books. Nothing to complain about here, except perhaps that it get very expensive buying all those books. There is however a solution to help everyone get more books, and for free – borrow an ebook from your local library.
Many libraries now provide their members with ebook lending options, and as smartphones (iPhone and Android) and eReaders are now very popular, this can be a great way to increase your reading without increasing your spending.
If your local library does stock ebooks then they’ll be provided with the Adobe DRM protection system, which means you have use an Adobe DRM enabled eReader to read them. Such devices/apps include; iPhone/Touch, Android, iPad, Sony Reader, Kobo Reader Cybook, etc. Using the free Adobe Digital Editions reader app you can also read these ebooks on your computer.
OverDrive eReader App
To help ease people in to borrowing ebooks from their library, OverDrive (the ebook distributor for libraries) has released an app for iPhone (download here) - an iPad version coming soon - and Android, making it much easier to access and download from your local library.
It’s perhaps not the best eReader out there, but still solid enough. Here’s a short video introduction to the app from OverDrive themselves;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhbV3phZ-N4
I won’t go into the details of how to get books onto your device as there’s already a comprehensive tutorial over at epubBooks.com, which explains everything you need know.
As a member of the Manchester Central Library, I was able to test this out; finding and downloading books was really quite easy. If I was to make one complaint, it would be that the selection of titles is a little limited. Still, ebooks are quite new and I’m sure the catalogue will grow over time.