So before, we all used to visit the library and borrow a book. Contrary to popular belief, I have actually done this in the past (or was it all just a crazy dream?). The library service had bought the book with the intention of lending it to us. It worked well.
Now, we have e-books and readers too. We download our books from a retailer like Amazon (or free source, in the case of books in the public domain) and store them on our Kindles, Sonys and whatever so we can read them.
What about libraries lending out e-books? Does that happen in the UK? Could it even work as a process, or does an e-book just get ‘licensed’ for single-person usage? What I’m getting at is… is it even legal for a library to buy an e-book and lend it to somebody?
I just read something on the web, where an American librarian was complaining about how a scheme to do this had been implemented in the States. Amazon seems to be the provider of an e-book lending service which works in conjunction with the reader’s library. The librarian was saying she disagreed with the fact that the user details which the library service used to be responsible for and guard are now shared with a commercial company (as well as details of their reading habits) as the process now uses the retailer instead of the public service.
OK, I’ll admin I haven’t used a library (or even read a book, come to that) for years. I need re-educating. Do you use the local library? Do they lend e-books?
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