Comments on: It’s E-book week: How do libraries provide content?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:32:09 +0000

Anali,

Yes the movies and audio formats are dwindling. The audio are really into three AAC, MP3, and WMA. The only reason everyone doesn’t do MP3 is because it can’t be secured as well.

The book formats are a mess. There is officially backing to one format as mentioned on the Teleread blog. We are unfortunately very far away to getting into a single format. Again, if you look at Manybooks.net, there are more than a dozen different book formats to download to your device. Unless you want to read the classics, or fork out money every time you want to read a book, the e-books are a very tough sell. That’s why I am enthusiastic about a library providing the content for the different formats. If you could hook up a Sony Reader with Overdrive content, you could satisfy many book addicts.

By: Anali

Anali — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:42:39 +0000

The only thing that’s stopping me from getting an e-book reader RIGHT NOW is the DRM. I already dealt with that crap with my ipod – I don’t have the patience to mess with it any more. Especially when I read all the time. I’d love to be able to carry around a book-sized device, with a pretty screen and nice battery life, that holds half my library. No more packing huge hardbacks or a trilogy every time I go on vacation.

But I won’t, because I’m not going to pay $400-$500 on a device that only lets me buy books from 1 place, only lets me read a certain type of file, and doesn’t play well with others. Not worth it.

I have hope, though. The proprietary formats for audio files are shrinking rapidly – I can only hope the industry will learn from this very soon so that e-book readers can be a viable option for us bookworms!

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:56:44 +0000

I guess then it is about getting the different formats and getting them to expire for the different devices. This is a direction we need to go in to provide convenience for our users, at least in the e-book market.

By: Roseline

Roseline — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:45:55 +0000

The reason publishers do not allow their library e-contents to be downloaded to a portable device or simply do not license to the library market is mainly bacause of the lack of DRM software on those devices, which means once you download the content, it’s yours to keep. This is especially true for the AV. It’s unfortunately for library users but understandable.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:27:22 +0000

Digital Rights Management is the general burden. There is some controversy over Neil Gaiman providing is book American Gods online for free. It’s great, if you want to read it on a computer. You can’t download it or transfer it to a mobile device. It isn’t an uncommon problem. However, if libraries can get their vendors to move into areas of convenience. Overdrive could still provide the DRM, but put it into formats that are compatible for more devices.

By: download rock mp3

download rock mp3 — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:46:11 +0000

I think the main problem of e-libraries is a copyrights… and I don’t know how to solve this problem, especially nowadays when you can easily download books, music and movies from the internet with copyrights breaking.

By: I Love My Kindle » Blog Archive » Kindle Google Alerts for 05 Mar 2008

I Love My Kindle » Blog Archive » Kindle Google Alerts for 05 Mar 2008 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:06:13 +0000

[...] It’s E-book week: How do libraries provide content?By Jeff Scott You can read a recent debate between the two major competitors Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader here. As far as readers go, you cannot move their cheese and expect them to utilize your products. There are an overwhelming amount of readers …MCLC Library Tech Talk – http://mclctechtalk.wordpress.com [...]