28 December 2011

Digital divide getting divide-ier (also water wet, sky blue...)

"In [publishers'] eyes, borrowing an e-book from a library has been too easy."
Don't you just love it when people who have no idea what they're talking about set e-book lending policies? I refer you to this post from 2009. This process is still the same (as I discovered, infuriatingly, a few weeks ago trying to borrow an audiobook to listen to at work). This is why I never borrow e-books from the library, because it's too frustrating even for me. And I work in the Internet. (You know, down in the mines. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho...) Better just to say as Maja Thomas of Hachette eventually gets around to, that profits are at stake.

1 comment:

P said...

Of *course* it's about profit - the bottom line. They don't give a shit about reading or education or anything.

That said, my library down in this podunk NJ town has a pretty easy ebook lending program. Yeah, a lot of the new books have long waiting lists or are not available as ebooks (which is not the library's fault), but getting what is available is pretty easy. I "borrowed" Extremely Loud a few weeks ago to read on my iPad and it took a few clicks to have it on my machine and start reading. Do you know if NYPL's program has changed since your last attempt?