Library e-books coming to Kindle
Posted: April 20th, 2011, 5:01 pm
Amazon has announced that sometime "later this year", Kindle users (and Kindle app users) will be able to read e-books checked out from the library. At the moment, Kindle is the only major e-reader that is unable to display library e-books.
Details are still emerging, but it appears that Amazon's worked out an arrangement with OverDrive that allows Amazon to deliver the borrowed e-books directly to Kindles (and Kindle apps), without any need for the irksome Adobe Digital Editions software. Or any need for a computer at all, for that matter. If correct, e-library patrons will find this to be far easier to deal with than the borrowing system used by other e-readers.
OverDrive will continue to enforce publisher restrictions. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster don't permit their e-books to be circulated at all, while HarperCollins permits each copy to be circulated no more than 26 times.
Details are still emerging, but it appears that Amazon's worked out an arrangement with OverDrive that allows Amazon to deliver the borrowed e-books directly to Kindles (and Kindle apps), without any need for the irksome Adobe Digital Editions software. Or any need for a computer at all, for that matter. If correct, e-library patrons will find this to be far easier to deal with than the borrowing system used by other e-readers.
OverDrive will continue to enforce publisher restrictions. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster don't permit their e-books to be circulated at all, while HarperCollins permits each copy to be circulated no more than 26 times.