Hundreds and hundreds of visitors have read LibraryCity‘sproposal for the sale of OverDrive to public libraries or a related nonprofit. The idea drew favorable reaction fromThad McIlroy, a prominent publishing consultant, and it even made an ALA newsletterand Reddit. Still not convinced of the possibilities? Well, consider that 39 percent of U.S. public libraries don’t offer downloadable e-books. Check it out for yourself. Ironic, isn’t it? Rockford, Illinois, is ODing on e-books, while many U.S. communities are so cash-strapped or e-backwards that they lack any. Or maybe not quite so backwards. Remember, with OverDrive as a middleman, many public librarians might not feel quite as comfortable with e-books as they would...

So, Penguin has now dropped out of the Overdrive library service. Yikes! It strikes me that all of these 'legacy' publishers who are panicking because Amazon or Apple or Google or Indie Everyman are going to crush them to bits are taking an entirely wrong approach here. What if, instead of clinging to the way things were done before, they actually innovated? What if, instead of locking things down ever further and driving people away from their goods, they opened things up and brought them in? I think an ebook rental service, run in conjunction with the existing Overdrive architecture, would...

Why did Penguin terminate their contract with OverDrive? Here’s what we’ve learned from an INFOdocket source. We are told that publisher contracts with OverDrive allow them to store and serve library end users ebooks. That’s it. OverDrive does NOT have permission to first authorize the lending of an ebook to a library end user and then forward the request for actual distribution and tracking of the title to Amazon.com or ANY other retailer. Similarly, in most situations*, publishers do not permit retailers to lend ebooks directly to end users. Finally, in November and again yesterday we noted an LJ article (November 23, 2011) that...

One of the giants of the book trade has unwittingly reinforced LibraryCity‘s argument that public libraries or a nonprofitshould buy the OverDrive distribution service. Penguin said it would stop selling new books to OverDrive‘s library side. In another OverDrive-related development, former librarian Andrew Strong, a library activist in Rockford, IL, told local officials they should consider advocating both an OverDrive purchase and a true national digital system. And he cited a current Rockford library manager’s enthusiasm for the OverDrive-related idea. Penguin’s dissing of OverDrive and public libraries is hardly alone among publisher, as you can see from this sign from Sarah “Librarian in Black” Houghton, the acting director of the San...

With yet another publisher announcing today that it’s dropping out of the library eBook market, I decided to put up a new sign in our library in a few different spots to raise public awareness.  The sign lists which publishers won’t do eBook business with libraries and provides contact information for the publishers in question.  I’ve posted about the issue on our library blog and pushed it out on our Twitter account and Facebook page.  And here’s a direct link to a downloadable copy of my sign on Google Docs. It’s not fancy, but feel free to take it, modify it, use...

UPDATE: Penguin Group Terminating Its Contract with OverDrive (by Michael Kelley, LJ) “In a stunning development, Penguin Group has extricated itself from its contract with OverDrive, the primary supplier of ebooks to public libraries. ‘Looking ahead, we are continuing to talk about our future plans for ebook and digital audiobook availability for library lending with a number of partners providing these services,’ said Erica Glass, in a prepared statement. Penguin is negotiating a “continuance agreement” with OverDrive, which will allow libraries that have Penguin ebooks in their catalog to continue to have access to those titles.” From an E-Mail to OverDrive Partners Starting tomorrow (February 10, 2012),...

OverDrive—the leading supplier of popular e-books for America’s public libraries—should sell itself to its library customers or at least think about it if they are willing and able to buy. In Rockford, Illinois, a much-needed controversy rages about the local library system’s spending almost a quarter of this year’s $1.2 million acquisitions budget on e-content from OverDrive. Will the nonelite suffer in a recession-battered city of 153,000 with high rates of poverty and joblessness? How many low-income people own e-readers, and can 50 or 100 loaner Kindles really do the trick? But what about a related question—whether a private company should lord...

We previously mentioned Penguin’s decision to stop making new e-book titles available to libraries in the USA and the UK. The Digital Shift reports that decision extends to downloadable digital audiobooks as well. A message from Overdrive yesterday explains this applies to audiobook titles released after 11/14/2011. In an apparently unrelated move, Amazon-owned BrillianceAudio will also stop offering downloadable audiobook titles. It’s not clear exactly why Penguin is doing this. The reason the company gave for its e-book restrictions was “concerns about the security of the copyright of its authors.” It has not given any explanation for this audiobook restriction. As...

From the press release: OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), the leading global digital distributor of eBooks and audiobooks to libraries and schools, has added thousands of foreign-language materials in dozens of genres to its broad catalog of more than 700,000 digital titles available across the globe. OverDrive’s online catalog, Content Reserve, which contains digital books in more than 50 languages, recently added popular and bestselling titles in Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian and Turkish with thousands of Spanish eBooks coming soon. Recently signed global distribution agreements include: Spanish: Santillana USA (www.santillanausa.com) offers popular adult fiction and nonfiction, including Agua...

How long would I keep my Kindle Fire tablet? I’d bought it mostly just to stay in touch with popular e-book tech. The Fire is hobbled with onerous digital rights management, favors a proprietary e-book format, and in certain ways is just a cash register for Amazon.Regardless of the millions of Kindles purchased over the holidays, many reviewers hate it. Amazon’s actual hardware isn’t that great for the money if you compare the Fire with the not-so-locked wares from my favorite Chinese tablet store. I sold my Fire on eBay to a telecommunications engineer in Belarus. But guess what? Having suffered a soul-wrenching case of seller’s...

A post by Karen Estrovich, manager of collection development for OverDrive, was just made available on their Digital Library Blog. This new OverDrive post does not mention or link to what was VERY likely the reason for the post in the first place. It comes three days after Sarah Houghton shared a SUPERB report about how some library customers see different available titles available. In other words, an eBook available for Library A to add to their collection might not be available for Library B to select. Sarah also points out in her post that she tried reaching out to OverDrive three times for a...

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Ryan Claringbole, the Digital Branch Librarian at the Chesapeake Public Library in Virginia.  He asked if I’d ever heard about OverDrive restricting certain libraries’ access to specific publishers’ materials, or, in other words, different libraries seeing different catalogs of eBooks available in the OverDrive Marketplace. I said “no,” and furrowed my little investigative brow, thinking something glitchy was probably happening with the OverDrive Marketplace.  I asked him to give me specifics and Ryan came through in spades–comparing the limited results found in his Marketplace to titles perfectly publicly visible in other...