Comments on: OverDrive announces ePub publishing partners

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:04:42 +0000

@Fred –

Libraries have gotten screwed by many many entities in the past regarding e-content. One university where I worked lost an entire journal archive collection when it was bought out by an larger entity.

We have to weigh our short term needs of patrons with our online archival goals. I don’t know of 1 library that is using OverDrive to be their only repository of “must have” titles – for us these titles are like the collections we rent from some vendors. They won’t remain on our shelves forever because the demand of a specific title won’t be there forever.
For things that we *have* to have – we are doing other things to preserve them for the future.

By: Jim Lester

Jim Lester — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:06:06 +0000

@Miki
ADE does not send to any server “each book you open”. The operators (such as Overdrive) will of course know each book you have bought from them (but not from other operators), is that what you are objecting to?

By: Miki

Miki — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:39:18 +0000

ePub – great. ADOBE ePub – horrible. What this doesn’t say is the push is for ADOBE ePub. With Adobe’s [lack of] privacy policies and monitoring of each book you open.

No thanks.

By: Fred Kiesche

Fred Kiesche — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:40:04 +0000

I hope librarians look at what Overdrive did…and realize they could end up with the same short end of the stick.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:20:05 +0000

I know OverDrive did a huge disservice to customers and themselves by pulling out of their agreement with Fictionwise.

But from my perspective as a librarian who purchases online materials – I’m thrilled by this announcement. We’ve been holding off on purchasing ebooks for our collection because we were torn between mobi or pdf titles. Now we have an option we can feel better about.

With the economy getting worst people are looking to libraries to fill an intellectual and recreational void. I’m really hoping to fill a need of our users with this.

By: Dave Robinson

Dave Robinson — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:25:39 +0000

Everything looks good – except for that nagging worry caused by their pullout from Fictionwise. Epub is definitely the way to go – I just don’t trust Overdrive as a content provider.