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Entries Tagged as 'overdrive'

OverDrive Responds to the Bait & Switch Complaints

December 12th, 2011 · overdrive

Late last week I posted about OverDrive’s latest faux pas, and today they posted a response on their blog.

They’d been caught offering different selection to different libraries without actually telling the libraries about the differences in availability. Now, it’s important to note that the limitations were publisher imposed and there wasn’t anything OD could do about it. The real issue was that librarians were bothered by the lack of explanation, both before and after they’d signed up with OD.

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OverDrive Caught in a Bait & Switch With Library Ebooks

December 9th, 2011 · library ebooks, overdrive

If you’ve ever looked at your library’s ebook selection and been disappointed, I think I just found out why.

Sarah Houghton has just posted a fascinating expose over at Librarian in Black. She’s uncovered evidence that OverDrive has been less than upfront about what ebooks they can sell to which libraries, and why.

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The Exodus Begins – Kansas Library Consortium Has left OverDrive

December 6th, 2011 · library ebooks, overdrive

OverDrive announced today that their contract to provide ebooks to the Kansas Digital Library Consortium had come to an end so the servers were about to be shut off. The KDLC decided to leave OverDrive some time back and they are currently beta testing the 3M Cloud Library, a recently announced alternative.

To be honest,  we all knew this was going to happen. Back in June the Kansas state librarian announced that Kansas had signed a deal with 3M and were planning to take their ebooks with them. They left for the obvious reason: cost. OverDrive had jacked up their fees far more than the state was willing to pay and possibly more than they could have afforded to pay.  The total fees would have jumped by almost 700% by 2014.

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Amazon Now Taking One More Step to Kill Mobipocket – No More Library Ebooks

October 4th, 2011 · digital library, Mobipocket, overdrive

I’ve been saying for some time that Amazon are killing off Mobipocket, and it looks like I was right. Steve Potash, the CEO of OverDrive, sent out an email a few weeks to OverDrive’s library partners. I was only just now given a link to the text of the email, and it holds a couple surprises.

In the email, Steve elaborated on all the changes that the libraries could expect to see in the services offered by OverDrive. There wre a couple interesting details about future improvements, but the big story (Kindle library ebooks) was already widely reported. But there’s one detail, that seems to have slipped by me.

Over Drive dropped Mobipocket support.

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Updated: Library Ebooks now Available for the Kindle

September 21st, 2011 · Amazon, Kindle, library ebooks, overdrive

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Do you recall how last month a rumor went around that the Kindle was supposed to get library ebook support some time in September? Guess what: it wasn’t a rumor.

It’s been just over 5 months since Amazon announced that the Kindle would get library ebooks, and it is just about to happen. Unfortunately for us, the system isn’t actually live just yet. It’s in beta at a couple libraries in the Seattle area. It’s not available elsewhere just yet

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Update: Amazon have expanded the beta to include all OverDrive partners in the US. The new service is slowly being rolled out to the 11 thousand participating libraries. I can now see that something like 50 or so libraries support the new service (as of Wednesday at Noon).

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OverDrive now offering more unlimited download titles

July 7th, 2011 · digital library, overdrive

OverDrive expanded their Max Access program today, and they added titles from a bunch of sources in a number of formats: ebook audiobook, video, and music. This expansion is part of Overdrive WIN, and it’s a significant increase in the content.

Max Access is a subscription based program that allows for multiple users to check out a title at a given time. According to OverDrive these titles will expire like the single-user titles.

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OverDrive now offering more DRM-free library ebooks

July 6th, 2011 · digital library, overdrive

Now that OverDrive  have a couple direct competitors for library ebooks, they’re stepping up the game.

Today they announced the latest publishers to offer DRM free library books through OverDrive.  There’ aren’t very many big name publishers on the list, but given that  this  didn’t exist 3 months ago the progress that OverDrive made is impressive.

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Overdrive just upset the ebook library cart

June 15th, 2011 · digital library, overdrive

I’m sure you know that the Kindle will be getting library ebooks later this year, and that the new service is going to cause some problems for libraries who already have a collection in Epub, PDF, or Mobi.

OverDrive confirmed some time back that Kindle owners would be able to check out any ebook in a library’s collection, no matter the format.

Today they expanded that promise to all ebook formats, and it’s difficult to express quite how big a deal that is. OverDrive just went format agnostic for the first time. I’m still thinking about what it’s going to do to the market.

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Overdrive announce e-reader cheat sheet for EVERYONE

December 5th, 2010 · overdrive

Overdrive announced another library e-reader cheat sheet last week. This one, like the last, shows e-readers that are compatible with Overdrive’s ebook library system.  But this one differs from the last in that it was made for the user, not the librarian.

There’s a big problem with it becuase it is woefully incomplete. leaving aside the fact that it shows only one of the Pandigital Novels and only 1 of the Literati, it’s missing 3 manufacturers.  Pocketbook (6 models), Bookeen (3 models), and Bebook (4 models) aren’t listed, and that’s just the big guys.

Folks, you can’t claim that this is for everyone when you forget to include half the market.

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P.S. Here‘s another e-reader cheat sheets I’ve blogged about in the past.

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