Close The Libraries And Buy Everyone An Amazon Kindle Unlimited Subscription

A terrible, short-sighted (tongue-in-check, I hope) suggestion from Forbes.

Herein some of the responses:

Do you not understand the plethora of other resources available to library patrons outside of books? How would a subscription to this service replace those services? Libraries offer such free services as: counseling with a lawyer or social worker, internet access, access to printers and copiers (sometimes for a fee), ESL classes, multitudes of programming for children and teens, a community hub for learning and socialization, among many other resources. Libraries/librarians are often on the forefront of activism for privacy rights, particularly in the United States. How does a service such as Amazon’s lending program advocate for its community?

In regards to book lending itself, the Amazon service is severely limited [and] does not include a wealth of titles available through other services, including libraries.
***
If you added up the real costs (labor, planning, staff knowledge, etc.) involved in the work libraries do, it would be far more than is ever received in financial support from their communities. Libraries are one of the few truly public services where you can say, you get MORE than you pay for.

Outlawed by Amazon DRM

Linn travels a lot and therefore has, or should I say had, a lot of books on her Kindle, purchased from Amazon. Suddenly, her Kindle was wiped and her account was closed. Being convinced that something wrong had happened, she sent an e-mail to Amazon, asking for help. This was the answer...

More here.



(Hat tip to Steve Bissette)

Amazon Launches New Daily eBook Promotion

The Kindle Daily deal works much like Amazon Free Daily Android App. One book is chosen each day. Amazon discounts heavily the ebook and promotes the title on the Kindle facebook page as well as on Twitter.

More HERE.

Oops. Kindle Cannot Support Library Books

By Vince Horiuchi
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published Sep 13, 2010 01:16PM

Last week, in a question about which e-book reader is best, I was asked which is a good model for renting digital downloadable books from public libraries.

In a sudden fit of brain cramps, I wrote that Amazons Kindle e-reader can download library books. WRONG!

I later learned from a batch of readers and the Salt Lake County Library that the libraries in fact do not support the Kindle. My bad...

But if I read the fine print on the librarys website, I would have realized that the PDF books rented out by the library use DRM, or digital rights management, to protect the files from being copied. Unfortunately, the Kindle does not support that kind of DRM. Why?...

At this point, they want customers of the Kindle and iPad to purchase the files hence, not making them available from their local library.

Amazon Faces a Fight Over Its E-Books

Last week, Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, offered an apparently heartfelt and anguished mea culpa to customers whose digital editions of George Orwell's 1984 were remotely deleted from their Kindle reading devices.

Though copies of the books were sold by a bookseller that did not have legal rights to the novel, Mr. Bezos wrote on a company forum that Amazon's solution to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles.

An apology was not enough for many people.

A growing number of civil libertarians and customer advocates wants Amazon to fundamentally alter its method for selling Kindle books, lest it be forced to one day change or recall books, perhaps by a judge ruling in a defamation case or by a government deciding a particular work is politically damaging or embarrassing.