[Web4lib] Kindle

[NORMA JEAN HEWLETT]

>I'm leery of digital rights management software that causes a title to
>*expire* so as to mimic a loan; it's a poor substitute for actually
>being able to borrow a physical item which can easily be shared with
>family, friends, and colleagues.  

I have purchased a number of audio books from Audible.com. Their 
policy is that Audible members retain access to books we purchase. 
This seems like a very fair policy to me. I sometimes wonder if they 
regret having such a liberal policy and will change it in the future.

I can download the same book from the audible.com website as many 
times as I wish, for as long as it remains "in print" at Audible. 
However, they do monitor downloads to see what device is used--I seem 
to remember that when I got a new ipod I had to register it with them. 
I'm guessing this is a safegard against somebody setting up a download 
service for all his friends. 

I'm also allowed to burn one copy of each book to cd, and I can do 
anything I want with the CDs. I sometimes do this and loan a copy to a 
friend. Their software keeps track of how many disks you burn for each 
book--when I attempted to burn a second copy of a book it cut me off. 
Their customer service is able to override this cut-off--they did it 
for me when I found some of my CDs were defective.
Jean Hewlett

----- Original Message -----
From: Melora Norman <MNorman at unity.edu>
Date: Monday, November 26, 2007 6:29 am
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Kindle
To: web4lib at webjunction.org

> I agree that Kindle sounds like a decent business travel 
> companion: if I
> were in and out of airports & wanting to be sure I had something 
handy
> to read while unexpectedly stuck out on the tarmac for several hours,
> Kindle would probably make a good toy for me.  My eyes tire quickly
> while reading on computers, phones, and PDAs, and their batteries 
> don'tlast long enough.
> 
> Since the device doesn't interact at all with a computer, it does not
> seem like a useful academic product.  Some of the ebooks I've 
> purchasedfor my PC are equally useless for the same reason--they 
> are so locked
> down, I can't even cut-and-paste a brief quote from them.  When it 
> comesright down to it, an ebook can be even less accessible than a 
> paperbook--at least we can OCR printed paper!!
> 
> I'm leery of digital rights management software that causes a 
> title to
> *expire* so as to mimic a loan; it's a poor substitute for actually
> being able to borrow a physical item which can easily be shared with
> family, friends, and colleagues.  As long as lending books is a
> significant social pastime, it will be hard to come up with a viable
> substitute for a paper book.
> 
> Melora Ranney Norman, director
> Quimby Library
> Unity College
> 90 Quaker Hill Road
> Unity, ME 04988
> 207.948.3131 x233
> mnorman at unity.edu 
> 
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