Since buying my smart phone two years ago I have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of reading I do. The convenience of e-readers on a device that’s always in my pocket has given me more opportunities to read. Alas this happened just as e-book prices began thier trek north, so my new pastime has become a costly one. I had hoped the library would have helped.
I have never been a big library user, (big revelation for a librarian huh). I am not the quickest reader, though I have gotten better, so the two week lending period for most items rarely gave me enough time to finish. Thank the library Gods for renewals, am I right? Right off the bat I was a little bummed that I could not renew the e-books that I borrowed from the library. That is not such a problem as I rarely find what I want to read in the lending que of my library’s e-book offerings. When I did find one I was promptly shuffled to a hold que and told to wait a few weeks. That thirty second download from the Kindle store is looking much better.
My next hope came from Open Library. A project form Internet Archive, Open Library boasted a collection of public domain and for loan books provided by member libraries. The open domain books come free of DRM so no checkout period hurdles for me. The borrowing library books did come with DRM (Adobe Digital Editions) and a two week loan period. Not so bad because at least I could find what I wanted to read.
Here is where it all went south. I recently upgraded my phone to the HTC Evo 4G LTE (clunky name great device). I was also halfway through Isaac Asimov’s The God’s Themselves on my old phone. Once I loaded up my e-reader app you can imagine my surprise, shock, anger and banging my head against the wall when my shiny new uber-smartphone is not supported by Digital Editions. I now had two choices, wait to finish the book or head over to the Kindle store. Eight bucks later I am continuing my read and I have lost all hope of libraries ever getting the shit together in regards to e-books.
Vincent A. Alascia 