OverDrive has launched a free locator–for the public and librarians, not just publishers–to search through listings for thousands of commercial e-books from 400 publishers. URLwire has the details about the eBook Locator.
The TeleRead take: Good move! The new service is definitely a step in the right direction, as long as it is not confined to the offerings of paying customers. No problem with ads on the home page. It’s only reasonable that OverDrive look for a sustainable business model for the service. Of course, the locator is no substitute for a powerful TeleRead-style catalogue that could search e-books not just by title and author and keyword but also by many other criteria. What’s more, don’t forget the Online Books Page and other existing locators for free e-books.
An aside: The big thing we’ve noticed is what’s not in the eBook Locator–for example, the actual novel of The Great Gatsby, as opposed to study guides. We didn’t see any writings by F. Scott Fitzgerald, for that matter. Of course, in Australia, a country without such an influential copyright lobby, Gatsby is online via the local Gutenberg project. Perhaps it’s time for librarians to compile a master e-book catalogue with both commercial and public domain works.
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