Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 With great fanfare, my local library system last year announced the ability to lend e-books to kindles and other devices. However, after using it a few times, it kind of strikes me as a dud. I wonder how well this works for others. First problem here: very few books. There's only about 5,000 e-books total available, shared between many different library systems in the state. Problem two: almost all the books are checked out. Right now, there's only 200 books available. I've had to wait weeks to check out books I've wanted. And if I'm going to wait weeks, and can only check out a handful, I figure I might as well go to the bricks & mortar library, and borrow a real book. Problem three: the selection of the books. It seems the majority of the books are mostly trashy romance and comic books. There seems to be no literature, no children's books, and very little non-fiction. I think all the e-books are ones which were originally published within the last year. I spot checked five Newberry winners, and there were no copies of any of them. Problem four: the online catalog is horrifically bad. It is very hard to search (exact author & title only), no keywords, and very slow. Also, it is a completely different system than the rest of the library uses. Is this just my local library (which I otherwise love?) Or do others see the same issues? I just can't let myself buy all these books from amazon, otherwise, I'd have to check myself into a 12 step program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Yes. I haven't used it but they offer it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen500 Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Yes, our library has e-books and it is a PITA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 (edited) Ours uses Library2Go, a statewide digital lending library. There's a decent selection, though not as extensive as our b&m library. ETA: *There is a long wait for many books, especially newer or more popular titles. But there is a waiting list/hold list with email notification, and the wait isn't as long for some titles as it might be from the downtown library. *Lots of classics, children's lit, non-fiction. I find that they often don't have newish less popular titles, but most of the older classics are availalbe and the more popular newer fiction. I'm reading A Dance With Dragons right now on my tablet. *It is kind of a hassle to search, but does have more options than title and author. It is so weird checking out library books from my living room. Cat Edited March 7, 2012 by myfunnybunch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixieB Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Our library has e-books. It's easy to search for them, check them out, and load them onto my Kindle. The selection is decent. Most of the e-books I check out are available right away. The few times I've placed a hold, I haven't had to wait more than a couple of weeks for the books to become available. I think our library allows a patron to check out 25 e-books at a time. What I really like is the automatic return feature. No overdue fees on e-books! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsBasil Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Mine does. The selection is not great, the search engine is beyond horrible, and I usually have to wait a week on the hold list to get a book I'd read. That said...I have no access to a car during the week. DH does the library runs after he gets off work by picking up the physical books I have placed on hold. I'm also nursing DD right now and it's much, much easier for me to read a book on my Kindle than read a physical book while nursing. It's worth it to me and I figure as it becomes more common these things will improve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyMSews Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Our local regional library uses the Overdrive system. The selection is okay (a little bit of everything), the site is reasonably easy to use. If anything, the search gives back too many results. Our regional library has 3600 ebooks, and right now 1360 are available. Thankfully our regional library has a reciprocal agreement with the city of Seattle library, so I have a card for them, too. They also use Overdrive, and have 35K ebooks, with 24K available. We get most of our ebooks for our Nook and Kindle from the Seattle library. We still sometimes have to wait for the books we want, but not usually more than a couple of weeks. I love getting those emails that we have an ebook available, because I can do download it *right now*, rather than waiting til I can get down to our small library with its limited hours. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeganCupcake Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Mine does. The selection is not great, the search engine is beyond horrible, and I usually have to wait a week on the hold list to get a book I'd read. That said...I have no access to a car during the week. DH does the library runs after he gets off work by picking up the physical books I have placed on hold. I'm also nursing DD right now and it's much, much easier for me to read a book on my Kindle than read a physical book while nursing. It's worth it to me and I figure as it becomes more common these things will improve. We have the same issues here. I don't mind waiting for a book to be available since I always have a quadrillion books I could read anyway. But I do hope the selection improves and the search capability gets synched to the rest of the library catalog. That would be much more user-friendly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elise1mds Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Ours does, and it's as problematic as the OP's. The selection is small, the wait times can be awful, and it's on a different system. Besides all that, I was talking to the children's programming coordinator and she said that the e-books can only be checked out a certain number of times - and it's a VERY SMALL number - before the publishers say that the book is 'expired,' and they have to remove it from the catalog. So popular books don't last very long in the system. The system is going to take a lot of work before it gets to where it needs to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momtoamiracle Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 my city library does not. However I am a patron of the library in the next parish and it does have ebooks. The selection is really pretty good. Wait time for a book is usually three days. I love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momtoamiracle Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Our library has e-books. It's easy to search for them, check them out, and load them onto my Kindle. The selection is decent. Most of the e-books I check out are available right away. The few times I've placed a hold, I haven't had to wait more than a couple of weeks for the books to become available. I think our library allows a patron to check out 25 e-books at a time. What I really like is the automatic return feature. No overdue fees on e-books! :) 25! we're allowed FOUR!! I check them out, download them, return them, then check out more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Yes, and it works great for us, but it has one of the best ebook collections in the US with a wide variety of genres. When we first started using it, there wasn't a large collection, but it's always improving. I use the hold feature extensively though. Of course, my standards aren't really high right now because there are very, very few paper books in English available anywhere near me, so anything I can get is wonderful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Running the race Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 My library has e-books. I have used it to check out a few books. The system is difficult to navigate and search. I've just struck it lucky a few times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeeBeaks Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 We have them. I put my son on a wait list for one 6 months ago and we are still waiting. I don't think we will be using it much with waits of 6+ months for a book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Our library has 6,695 ebooks. I've put a few on hold as none of the ones I think the kids or I would be interested in are available. In the past three weeks, we've gotten two books to read. I'm actually really disappointed in the Kindle. I love it, but I don't buy books and don't have the money to start now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Yes, we have e-books for check out. I haven't had any problems with it. I did want to read a best seller at one time and had to wait a week for it. However, the wait list for the hardback book was over 50 deep, so that would have been several weeks. It seems really easy to navigate, I just download them right to my kindle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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