azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 ([personal profile] azurelunatic) wrote2020-01-05 07:03 pm

Boooooks

My library has a fairly decent ebook collection. This is good, because I find paper books harder and harder to read and keep track of.

They let you read on your phone, which makes me happy. They have you use a specific app, which makes me less happy. Overdrive or Libby (same company, slightly different feature set). I use Libby these days.

I needed my library card number and I think the PIN my library assigned me. That got me logged in, and browsing happily around.

Checking out books is easy, and books that aren't available can be wait-listed.

It sometimes screws with my brain to swipe sideways to turn pages rather than scroll down. "Search" means search the book, "define" contains a google-me-this button.

There's an option to return the book early when done reading. I usually do. That helps when someone else is waiting. If the loan expires, it's automatically checked back in. No such thing as an overdue ebook (important).

In a popular series, I like to put the next two books on hold, and suspend the second hold for a while (maximum 6 months) so I get them in a timely fashion.

Hold #1 is normal. I get it when I get it. I get a helpful email.

Hold #2 waits. It keeps my place in line until I'm #1 in line, but then starts skipping me until I unsuspend. (Or if the suspend timer runs out.) Then it checks it out for me.

When I get hold #1, I unsuspend hold #2.

I could theoretically do this with all the rest of the books in the series if they're checked out, but in practice that seems like too much work.

I like to use Do Not Disturb mode while reading, to minimize the amount of bings and beeps (and top-line obscuring previews) emitted.
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[personal profile] roadrunnertwice 2020-01-06 04:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Man I love library ebooks.

Multnomah and TRL and Hennepin all have the kindle option [personal profile] origamist described for like 80% of their ebooks, so that’s worth a look. But also... most implementations of Libby/overdrive let you download kindle-disabled books as “adobe digital editions” drm-ed epubs, and it’s pretty feasible to crack+convert those. I don’t want to pirate per se, but I DO want to do my reading on an e-ink kindle, so I learned how to do that at some point.
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[personal profile] sporky_rat 2020-01-06 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Eventually I'm going to need to crack a couple of books that I bought because the e-reader I have and use won't keep working. I'll have to change systems.