Coming Soon: Your Library on Kindle

There are two approaches that have been tried with software--(1) keeping total control over a new technology and (2) letting everyone who wants to be in on the deal use it freely. Although these are totally opposite, both seem to work.  A familiar example today is the way Apple has chosen option 1, for example with the iPhone, compared to the way Google has chosen option 2 by allowing any phone manufacturer to adopt the Android software.  Either way is successful, provided you actually have software the people want, but a company may have problems if it has not made a clear choice.

In the field of eReaders, the Kindle has been one of the success stories.  Amazon started off with a strategy similar to Apple's, using software that was closely held.  Other eReaders were more open from the start.  Although there are different softwares behind such eReaders as Sony and the Nook,  they are relatively easy to adapt to each other, so most eBooks were available for all eReaders--except for the Kindle, which was still very proprietary.  Seeing this, when library systems such as the Mid-Hudson began to make eBooks available for borrowing, they used the system that could be read on most eReaders.  The Kindle was out. There was a similar problem with the iPad, which could not read books from libraries directly, but soon App suppliers provided work-arounds to allow iPad users to access library books.

Finally Amazon recognized that it was making a mistake.  Libraries buy a lot of books, and the eBooks from Kindle were locked out of that market.  Amazon announced yesterday that it would allow libraries to offer books on Kindle later this year.

Library use of eBooks is growing rapidly--the New York Public Library said that the rate of borrowings this year was up 36% over a year prior.  Publishers are still trying to work out how adding eBooks to the mix will affect sales.  Harper Collins has put a limitation of 26 loans (one year of two-week check-outs) for an eBook before the library system will have to repurchase the book. Simon and Schuster and Macmillan are not allowing libraries to lend their titles as eBooks at all.  My view is that all publishers will have to come around, just as Amazon has, because of the number of books that libraries buy each year--although limitations on use similar to the one from Harper Collins may also become more widespread.

With all the complications, if you have wanted to get a Kindle but were probably going to buy a different system because of the library situation, that limitation will not stand in your way much longer.