Overdrive and nook?

[jadestone]

For those that have received their nook, have you been able to borrow books from the library using Overdrive? That is one of my main reasons for getting the nook, and I know from reading both here and at B&N's boards, that this is still a bit up in the air. Thanks and congratulations on receiving your nook!

[Rachel]

Yes yes Inquiring minds want to know!!

Rachel

[odobooks]

i should be able to answer this one tomorrow.

[jamiej]

Can't wait to see the answer on this.

[Lisa]

Just checked an ebook out of the library. Works just fine as does putting all my drm epub purchased books on the nook.

[Klaatu]

Excellent news, Lisa. Just out of curiosity, where have you purchased other ebooks from, and how did you side load them?

Regards,
Michael

[SuperC142]

Just checked an ebook out of the library. Works just fine as does putting all my drm epub purchased books on the nook.

Wow- awesome!  Out of curiosity, from which vendor did you purchase your ePub books with DRM?

[jamiej]

Wonderful!!  Thank you.

[Lisa]

I have purchased some epubs from booksonboard & some british titles from WH Smith. It loads onto adobe digital editions which recognizes the nook (after it prompts you to authorize it). Then you just drag the titles through digital editions onto the nook which will show up on the left hand side of the digital editions shelf.

[PatrickKanouse]

Fantastic and thanks for the update! I have an ADE I bought from powells.com, so I think I have a high likelihood of success in getting that on the nook when it arrives.

[JJoyce]

You shouldn't have a problem from what Adobe's said.

As long as you're using Adobe's software, anyway.

Incidentally, ComputerWorld has a fairly interesting article touching on the Kindle/Nook/Adobe subject here:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142005/Amazon_s_Kindle_winning_battle_but_Adobe_poised_to_win_e_book_war

[Rachel]

Just checked an ebook out of the library. Works just fine as does putting all my drm epub purchased books on the nook.

Lisa did you specifically use Overdrive or does your library use something else for eBooks?

Thanks for all the great info!! Nice to see that ADE works as they said it would!

Rachel

[antimony]

My library uses Overdrive. I just tried it, and it worked perfectly!

[gulo]

that's awesome, my library offers Adobe PDF books via Overdrive as well

[Rachel]

Yay!! I am so happy to hear this. 

Rachel

[larryb52]

My library uses Overdrive. I just tried it, and it worked perfectly!

perfectly as in just download to your computer & drag it to the nook?..

[antimony]

yup, exactly like that. 

[larryb52]

and were talking DRM protected right?

[TamiK]

Awesome news. For all the dumb people out there like me, my local library doesn't have ebooks  Can I pull from another library? how does that work? For example, I live in San Diego County (with no ebooks at the libraries), but my parents live in Los Angeles County (and I used to). Could I get books from the LA County library?

[lostknitter]

Any library you can get a Library Card from, who has e-books, you can borrow them. I live in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, I can get e-books at our local library, and the Kansas City Public Library. If I want to spend $50/yr, I could get Library books from the Green County Missouri library. There are Libraries who will give cards to people who do not live in their district for a fee also. You can go to the Library web page and see what their requirements are. Here's hoping you find one! Jeni

[antimony]

and were talking DRM protected right?

Yes, Adobe Digital Editions DRM.

[Lisa]

Lisa did you specifically use Overdrive or does your library use something else for eBooks?

Thanks for all the great info!! Nice to see that ADE works as they said it would!

Rachel

Yes its the NYPL & its overdrive.

[TamiK]

Any library you can get a Library Card from, who has e-books, you can borrow them. I live in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, I can get e-books at our local library, and the Kansas City Public Library. If I want to spend $50/yr, I could get Library books from the Green County Missouri library. There are Libraries who will give cards to people who do not live in their district for a fee also. You can go to the Library web page and see what their requirements are. Here's hoping you find one! Jeni

Thanks Jeni! This helps a lot. I'm going to see if I can still get a LA County card. I used to have one, but that was ages ago.

Edit: Great news! It looks like the LA Public Library just needs a current California Driver's License! WOOT! I now have a library to get ebooks (once I can get to LA to get a new library card)! 

[odobooks]

Lots of confirmations on here on how this DOES work.  I'll add two bits of info, as one confounded me for a while until I found an obscure reference on how to fix it:

1. My mother-in-law lives in Phoenix, and I asked her to set me up on her Library card as they have a digital library consortium with the surround communities.  I logged in and downloaded two Robert Ludlum books.  I had my Adobe Digital Editions open, and when I selected "download" from the website, ADE went to work and added them to my library, then I just drag-and-dropped them onto the Nook (which shows up automagically).  Smooth as silk, accept:

2. I had previously authorized my ADE to my work adobe account (I use CS4 programs A LOT), so when I plugged in the nook it wouldn't let me authorize my library to be loaded onto the nook with two different email address.  There isn't any clear way to fix the problem.  So, my solution was to create a new adobe ID using my nook email address and I found (finally) that if you hit <ctrl><shift><D> in ADE it will allow you to de-authorize an older (or incorrect) account and re-authorize with another email address.   This time I used my nook address, and bingo it worked.  I was able to transfer to the nook.

Has anyone tried downloading overdrive without ADE and putting it on the nook?  I wonder if that works at all...

[mfaine]

Yes, they are DRM protected.

I tried Overdrive last night and got the latest Sookie Stackhouse book.  As I've said before, it is no wonder that people strip DRM from ebooks.  The book in question is an ADE PDF and was not fit for presentation on my nook.  Here is some of what was wrong with it:

1.  Contains a page header with a QuarkExpress file name, original path, date, and page number on every page.
2.  Chapter/Section headers are in the wrong place, some pages have "Charlaine Harris" at the top, some do not, some have the title at the top, some do not, the header font size and styles vary.
3. There is no Table of Contents, or any indication of chapter beyond a simple number above where the chapter starts.
4. There is no Cover
5. Limited metadata - author and title and maybe a couple of other minor fields.

Probably more but I stopped counting after a while.

Has anyone else found the quality of books from Overdrive lacking?  Do you think the mobi formats would be any better?

It seems most books are either PDF or Mobi, though they are starting to get some ePub books.

-Mark

[Wundernook]

I have borrowed ebooks from my library and what I have found is that the PDF versions are not formatted as nicely as the EPUB. I don't know if the PDF conversion process is the cause, but it seems like there is some formatting that is resulting in the pages not flowing nicely. The PDF books that I have read seem to all have the issue of not reflowing a page so that if the printed page takes an equivalent screen and a half on the ereader to capture all the words, I get a page and a half on my ereader, instead of having the next page start at the end of the last page.

I like the EPUB format much more; it looks like the books that I purchase for my Kindle. My library has both PDF and EPUB so I will check out PDF only if the EPUB is not available.

[brarob]

 Question about this process. I downloaded a book from my public library via OverDrive and it's now saved on my hard drive and I can read it with the Adobe Digital Editions reader. To copy it on my nook do I go and find the source file being loaded into the adobe reader and just copy it over?

[twillisrdh]

I, too, was disappointed to find out my local library did not have Overdrive. I decided to go to the Overdrive website and found out the one the next county over did. I had already decided it would be worth paying a yearly fee to get the card. Imagine how excited I was to find out they have a reciprocal agreement with our county library system! I just have to show them my card and I can get one there. I think I'll be making a trip one day next week. Now I'm even more excited than I was before to get my nook. By the time it gets here, no one will be able to stand me!

[fahrenheit451]

I decided to go to the Overdrive website and found out the one the next county over did. I had already decided it would be worth paying a yearly fee to get the card. Imagine how excited I was to find out they have a reciprocal agreement with our county library system! I just have to show them my card and I can get one there.

Be sure to check with them on exactly what services they provide.... The different libraries in the towns near me are all part of one library system, and I too can check out materials from any of these libraries with my card. However, I do not have the privilege of getting any digital services, except from my "home" library: no e-books, no audio downloads, which stinks as the library in my city has an extremely pathetic digital collection.

[odobooks]

Question about this process. I downloaded a book from my public library via OverDrive and it's now saved on my hard drive and I can read it with the Adobe Digital Editions reader. To copy it on my nook do I go and find the source file being loaded into the adobe reader and just copy it over?

Just in case you haven't sorted this one out yet: I just plugged my nook into the computer via the USB cable when I had ADE open it showed up in the left hand column.  Then I just selected the book from the library and drag-and-dropped it on the nook icon and it uploaded to my nook in My Documents.  Hope that helped.

[CaliMar]

I did not know the Los Angeles Public Library was doing e-Media... how great to find this information here!!

[mfaine]

One problem I've found with Overdrive is that a book is only available in one format.  If they have the ADE PDF then they don't have MOBI, and vice versa.  This means you often find books in MOBI format that you can't checkout. 

-Mark

[odobooks]

One problem I've found with Overdrive is that a book is only available in one format.  If they have the ADE PDF then they don't have MOBI, and vice versa.  This means you often find books in MOBI format that you can't checkout. 

-Mark

I've also found that, at least with the Phoenix Digital Library, they have both .pdf and .epub formats, but not both for a book.  .epub is rare, but occassionally there is one there.  The .pdf's have the same problems that others have mentioned in that formatting can be goofy (empty or half pages).

[ThisHereIsMyUserName]

Thank goodness I found this board about how to borrow eBooks from libraries. I've been searching all over the internet for information about this very subject. 

So, if I am reading these posts correctly, it IS possible to borrow eBooks from public libraries but it can be tricky? Is that the deal?

I live in a small town in rural West Virginia so my public library is not offering 'eLending' yet. Can someone recommend a library site that will lend ebooks to me that I can easily download to my Nook?

Thanks very much for your help!

 

[Rachel]

Unfortunately I think most libraries that lend eBooks require that you have a library card from that library.  Mine only does audio books and I looked around to see if I could buy a card from another library, but I had to live in the town or county to get one.  Maybe if you have a library in a town near you that would be willing to let you get a card there as an exchange with your town, that might be your best bet.

Rachel

[Wundernook]

The selection of ebooks available varies greatly by library. I am fortunate to belong to the New York Public Library, which has a pretty good selection. Many books are available in both PDF and EPUB format (and audio as well). This isn't the case for all books; some only have one version. The site lists the number of copies owned by the library and the number available and for some of the more popular books, even though there are many copies owned by the library there is a waiting list.

From what I have heard (and seen in a few cases), many other libraries are still lagging in getting their ebook volume to a nice size. Hopefully this will change over time if they hear from their patrons that they want more selection. Of course, some states may be pretty strapped budget-wise, so that may be factoring into how the ebook libraries get expanded.

It is a very nice option if it is available at your library, and the process for getting books to my nook works pretty easily. One nice thing with the nook is that I can have both EPUB and PDF books in progress at the same time; on my Sony eReader I had problems with doing that and could only read one type of file or the other (I think this was due to their software -- hopefully it will or has been fixed by now).

[twillisrdh]

My county library does not have Overdrive, but does have a limited number of ebooks or audiobooks. The library in the county next to us does have Overdrive and I can take my library card there and get one of theirs since they reciprocate with us. Some times a nearby county will let you pay a fee (usually less than $50) to be a member. That is still less than the number of books you would have to purchase if you weren't one.

[VirtualKnitter]

Unfortunately I think most libraries that lend eBooks require that you have a library card from that library.  Mine only does audio books and I looked around to see if I could buy a card from another library, but I had to live in the town or county to get one.  Maybe if you have a library in a town near you that would be willing to let you get a card there as an exchange with your town, that might be your best bet.

Rachel

Rachel,
Seattle Public Library offers a library card for out of area residents for $85 a year.  If it's worth it to you (cost of purchasing 9 eBooks from B&N, basically), that's a good deal.  You would definitely have to figure out if it's worth the price or not though.  SPL appears to have a very extensive collection. I have only checked out from our county library so far, which is not as extensive (as I still need to stop by SPL to activate my card - I lie int the county but work in the city so can have both). 

[Traci]

So, how does it work exactly with the overdrive titles being on loan?  Is it automatically deleted from your nook after a certain period of time?  I don't see how they would do that, so I've been assuming that's not how it works.

My local library does use Overdrive, but only for audiobooks.  I'm wondering if it'd be worth my while to try to track down a non-local library that would allow me to pay for a library card, so I'm trying to figure out just how it works. 

[VirtualKnitter]

So, how does it work exactly with the overdrive titles being on loan?  Is it automatically deleted from your nook after a certain period of time?  I don't see how they would do that, so I've been assuming that's not how it works.

There's a bit of code that tells your reader when your checkout period expires.  I assume that after that point, you will no longer be able to read the book.  My guess is that on the Nook, you will then have to manually delete the file.  It might automatically be deleted from your computer though - I don't know as I have not reached that point yet.  I did finish one book that I had checked out and was able to return it early sing my desktop software, but then I had to manually delete it from the Nook.  With my library, the checkout time is 21 days, which I think is pretty standard.