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... has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? That Adobe DRM is the industry state-of-the-art.

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Libby app makes it trivially easy.

* not affiliated in any way, just a happy user.

https://meet.libbyapp.com/

Does it run under wine?

https://help.libbyapp.com/6059.htm

> If you have an Adobe-compatible ereader (like a NOOK or Kobo), you can download Libby ebooks on a computer, then use Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to transfer them to your device:

> 1) Open libbyapp.com on a computer and go to Shelf > Loans.

> 2) Select Send To A Device.

> 3) Click select your device, then choose Adobe-compatible ereader. Note: If you've sent books to Kindle in the past, you may need to click your Kindle device at the top of the screen instead of select your device.

> 4) Select Download DRM File.

> 5) Open the file in ADE and transfer the book to your ereader. (Learn how using this article from OverDrive Help.)

trivially easy

Or just use your phone.

Oh. I never actually looked into what it would take to read on a laptop, I read on my phone or tablet. This is definitely a lot more painful :(

The more punishing the process of getting shared access to the book, the more units it'll sell. At least, that seems to be what publishers believe in.

In USA you have rights to format shift, so can libraries just 'rip' books in to an open format and lend those versions as long as they internally reserve a paper copy?

You can change formats, but they can't lend more than a single copy at any given time or they will be violating copyright (and making more copies of a book than they actually have).

Ha, so banks can have fractional reserves but libraries can't. Typical.

Gotta keep the wealthy bankers happy

They'd keep librarians happy if librarians donated to political campaigns.

The library could lend in a useful format though. I wasn't suggesting they lend tortuously.

Also if they limited loans to 1hr (or any time short of the regular loan), but allowed reservation ahead, then they could probably have many more people with the book available. The majority of the time I have a library book checked out it's on my shelf; doing the checkout virtually, when it's on my virtual shelf the library can loan it to someone else. Either I wait (if I want to access it and all copies are currently in use), or they take a payment from me to access the book immediately and they buy access to an extra copy.

Of course publishers would probably just increase the loan charge.

has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library?

To be fair I don't know anybody who has either. I know it's possible and I know my local library offers this, but I've never met anybody who's actually used this service.

I'm surprised. To me it seems like the only reasonable way to use eBooks.

The only reasonable way to use ebooks is to buy the non-DRMed epub, drop it on your web server in a password-protected directory, and read it from all the devices you want to read it from.

My county library has a poor electronic collection. Still, I tried to check out a book and got put on a waiting list with 30 other people. That was before Christmas. I haven't heard anything else about it.

Waiting lists happen with popular new books with physical copies as well. If you look for books that are a year or so old, or are something other than popular fiction (science or history for example), normally you can get a book immediately in my experience.

I use it all the time, and is incredible convenient. I use Libby, and it works basically the same as the Kindle app, but with fewer features.

Check it out, it's a great resource!

Definitely check it out (pun not intended). Libraries are amazing institutions that many younger people assume are antiquated but are really keeping up with the times. Also, besides ebooks, many of them also have digital magazines you can read on your phone or tablet. I read the New Yorker and The Economist that way.

I tried it once. You had to wait like 3 weeks for Overdrive to let you download one of the few books in their collection (mostly kids books and just pop garbage).

Going to libgen is a much better experience.

Ehm, haven't even seen a library in the past 10 years. Pretty sure the amount of people who has checked out an ebook from a library here is very small.

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