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To complete the saga of my experience with Kindle Library Lending through Overdrive, the expiration date of my books arrived over the weekend. Helpfully, I received warning emails about all four books about three days in advance, each with an offer to buy the book included. More importantly, these tipped me off to the...
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With all the fun of Kindle library lending afoot, I started to wonder how I could see the number of days left before my book goes “Pooh!” and turns into a pumpkin (or at least is “returned” to the library from whence it came). Now, to be fair to Sony, which, despite the Kindle...
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Now that Amazon and Overdrive have completed their deal to make Kindle titles available through Overdrive’s client libraries, the web has been astir with commentary on the roll-out, which was announced last week. It was a much awaited moment for Kindle owners, who have decried their inability to borrow books from the public library,...
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There was a news story this summer that has been a long time in the making: SPAM hits the world of e-books. Anyone who has been following the Amazon Digital Text Platform since its beginnings has seen this coming a long way off. A search for a copy of Pride and Prejudice as recently...
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Editor’s note: This post is reprinted here with permission from The Unquiet Librarian blog by Buffy Hamilton, who is the school librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, Georgia, as well as highly influential writer, teacher, and speaker. Why We Won’t Purchase More Kindles at The Unquiet Library by Buffy Hamilton We’re back in The...
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Should you de-synchronize your Kindles? As my lawyer might say, it depends. If you are a teacher or librarian, and you want students who are reading a copy of a book that is shared among six Kindles, the answer to the question for you may very well be YES. Let me explain. Amazon makes...
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Why not? It is an accepted practice that hardware and software vendors offer reduced pricing for educators. I mean, even Microsoft does it, and these guys are not known for leaving money on the table. So why not Amazon and why not the Kindle? The practice is not all generosity of spirit for Steve...
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The transformation of books into a fully-fledged digital medium took a giant step recently when HarperCollins announced new terms for the ebooks it sells to public libraries. Many librarians first heard about the policy change from Overdrive, the supplier that handles digital media loan programs for many libraries. The news was grim: HarperCollins will...
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Getting the books you buy onto as many readers as possible is a matter of great interest to educators. Right now, there are basically three ways to leverage e-books to increase distribution of titles in schools: 1.  Sharing (books among devices on one account) 2.  Lending and Borrowing (books among all users) 3.  Library...
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One of the most consistent questions over the years about Kindle management concerns how to disable the ability to make purchases directly from the device. For educators, this is almost a show-stopper with Kindle. This uber-consumer reading device, designed with book purchases in mind, makes it just too darned easy to buy a book,...
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