[accesscomp] Fw: Dan's Tip for February 6 2013,(How to use your iPhone, iPad or )
- From: "Bob Acosta" <boacosta@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "tektalk discussion" <tektalkdiscussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 07:01:16 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: dan
To: dan
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2013 6:07 AM
Subject: Dan's Tip for February 6 2013,(How to use your iPhone, iPad or )
How to use your iPhone, iPad or Mac to borrow ebooks from the library
By Geoffrey Goetz
Jan. 26, 2013 - 9:00 AM PST Jan. 26, 2013 - 9:00 AM PST
You may be familiar with purchasing books and magazines for your iPhone and
iPad, but have you ever borrowed an ebook or digital edition of a magazine from
your local library? As more and more local libraries are adding online digital
catalogs of books for borrowing, it's a great - and cheaper! - way of building
up your digital library for free. After trying out a few methods for using the
resources of your local library to borrow electronic versions of your favorite
ebooks, magazines and audiobooks, I've written up a quick guide to follow.
Borrowing ebooks with OverDrive
Most libraries are choosing a third party to host and manage the lending
process. One such service provider, OverDrive Digital Downloads, is what my
local library uses.
http://www.overdrive.com/Solutions/Libraries/
OverDrive currently supports 18,000 libraries with millions of readers. The
experience is not quite what you would expect if you're used to Apple's
integrated iBooks app or Amazon's Kindle bookstore. But it does work, and once
you have the ebook on your iPhone or iPad, the reading experience is just about
the same.
Getting Started: The first thing you will need is an active account at your
local library. This will be used to identify you as a borrower and ultimately
limit the number of ebooks you can have checked out at any one time.
Selecting an e-reader: For most of the titles available from my local library
on OverDrive, I have only two main choices: to either use Amazon's Kindle
solution on my iPhone, iPad and Mac, or to use OverDrive's own e-reader client
for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. As a possible third option, you can also elect
to use Adobe Digital Editions for the Mac.
http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions.html
But be aware: the one client that you will not be able to use is Apple's own
iBook e-reader for iOS, as it does not support the DRM solution that the other
readers support.
Borrowing an ebook: Browsing the online library of ebooks is the same
experience for all e-eaders. You will select a book via your browser. I found
that using Safari for OS X and iOS work just fine for this. Once you associate
your library account with OverDrive, you can create wish lists and place holds
on books you want to read. Each title in the library is limited to a
predetermined number of copies that the library can lend out.
Downloading the ebook: If you place a hold on a book, you will be notified via
email when the book is available. Depending on your e-reader, once you log in
to your library account, you will either download the file directly to the
OverDrive e-reader client on your device, or you will log on and register your
library account with Amazon, and check the book out directly to your Amazon
account.
Since I already have all of my devices registered with my Amazon Kindle
account, as soon as I checked out the ebook it was available on all of my
devices for me to read. So reading any ebook that I check out from the library
is the same experience on my Kindle as with any other book in my library. Even
my bookmarks sync across all of my devices.
Digital magazines with Zinio
The experience with magazines is different since my library chose to go with
Zinio as its partner. Zinio has been around for a while and was bringing
digital versions of popular magazines to your iPhone and iPad long before Apple
introduced iOS Newsstand to the world. There are no choices here, you have to
use the Zinio reader for the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
You do have to sync your Zinio account with your library account, but once that
is done, as soon as you select a magazine from the online library of digital
magazines available for lending, it instantly shows up on your Zinio account
for reading. While you won't have the same connivence as you would with a
receiving updates via a paid subscription, selecting individual releases can be
more cost effective since borrowing is of course free,.
Borrowing audiobooks
I was also happy to see that you can use OverDrive to check out audiobooks from
the library as well. To do this, you will have to use the OverDrive client for
Mac, which does come with some restrictions: You will not be able to borrow any
audiobook that in only available in WMV format. You will be limited to
borrowing only MP3 audiobooks.
You will be able to listen to your audiobooks in your favorite audio device as
the OverDrive client for Mac supports exporting audiobooks to devices like an
iPhone, iPad and iPod. You are even permitted to use the OverDrive client to
burn an audiobook to CD.
Overall the experience was a positive one. It takes a little to get used to
the process of searching for electronic books and magazines that will work with
the format your e-reader supports, and ultimately to get them working on your
preferred devices. But after you have done it a couple of times, it's really
not all that complicated. And it can definitely help expand your reading list
and your own personal digital library without costing you anything.
Send messages to dthompson5@xxxxxxxxx
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Psalms 91-1, "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the
shadow of the Almighty.
Psalms 91-2, I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God in
whom I trust.
"
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