It's been a busy couple of days. Here it is the middle of the 6th day of the Library books read-a-thon and I'm just now getting around to posting my entry for day 5. Rachel's post on Friday talked about digital resources available from the library. I suppose that audio CDs and software programs that can be borrowed from the library fall into this category, but for the most part when people talk about digital resources, they're really talking about eBooks, audio books, and music/video downloads. As I mentioned before, my library has a very limited budget, so it doesn't offer the variety of digital resources you'll find at a big, metropolitan library system.
I am a real fan of eBooks. I bought a Kindle shortly after the very first one was announced. It arrived in February 2008 and the first book I read on it was Stone Cold by David Baldacci. As soon as I had my Kindle, I started hunting around at all the sources for eBooks and somehow came across MobileRead. For several years, I was very active in the community at MobileRead and I still check in the forums from time to time.
I like eBooks so much that I have three readers. I upgraded my original Kindle to the third-generation Kindle which has Wi-Fi as well as the cellular “Whispernet” connectivity. I also have a Sony reader and a BeBook Mini. Both of these use books in the ePub format and the Kindle supports only MobiPocket format.
Now, all that information just sets the stage for a description of the digital/downloadable resources available through my library. As eBooks have become more popular, my library investigated how they might provide a service to lend electronic books. The most common service used by libraries is through Overdrive, but the fees were too expensive for my little library. So, they signed up with a service called Freading. Freading doesn't offer books by the big-name publishers. Instead, they've partnered with a number of smaller publishers such as Poisoned Pen Press and Open Road Media. I've found plenty of books to read at Freading—at first tackling the Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood and now moving on to the Kate and Cecelia fantasy series. I have made a wishlist of books which I've seen in the Freading catalog and I'll be downloading many books from them throughout the rest of this year.
The disadvantage of Freading is that they don't offer books in a format compatible with a Kindle reader. I'm fortunate that I have other readers which can use the ePub format provided by Freading, but I really wanted to be able to borrow books to read on my Kindle. I was very happy to discover that a nearby library had a subscription through Overdrive. This library is also in the North Texas Library Consortium, and they have a restriction that you can have a library card from only one library in the group. I could have given up my library card for the local library and gotten one at the other library, but I really didn't want to do that. However, hubby didn't have a library card at all, so he signed up for a card at the second library, and I use his card to borrow books from Overdrive. This library's Overdrive subscription also includes audio books, but I'm really not interested in borrowing audio books because it can take me months to listen to an entire book.
Progress in the Read-a-Thon
On Thursday evening, I continued to read Sorcery and Cecelia for about an hour into the flight. Then I decided to go back to Post-Human and I read it for the rest of the trip home. I didn't quite finish it before I went to bed, so I read the last couple of chapters on Friday morning before I went to work. Hubby volunteered to pick up the two books that I had reserved, so I started reading Bad Blood at supper time. I've been reading it off and on today and hope to finish it tonight. Oh yeah. It should be obvious that I'm not going to finish all the books that I have borrowed before the read-a-thon is over.
Library books finished during the read-a-thon
Library books I'm currently reading:
Library books I plan to read during the read-a-thon
You use the digital collections much more than I do. I guess that is one advantage of having a significant other that doesn't read. I currently have two library cards one for my college public library since I have an address there I get it for free and one for my hometown library. I also can check out books from my University library, but that doesn't have a very big selection. My hometown library is the one I have been talking about this week and they subscribe to overdrive. I get books from it every so often, but if I can read the book in paperback format I will choose the paperback over the ebook any day. Freading sounds like a great service to introduce you to less know authors. I'm always telling myself I should read more random books. I'm already planning next year's readathon and that is going to be apart of it.
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