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MONTROSE, N.Y. Books for the Kindle e-reader have become available for loan through the Hendrick Hudson Free Library. The availability of e-books on Kindle came as a surprise to librarians, who just embarked on a plan to buy six Simple Touch e-readers to loan out to patrons.
Just last week we found out that theyre compatible, said Risa Getman, assistant director at the Hendrick Hudson Free Library. As long as a patron has a library card, a Kindle and an account with Amazon, the patron can now download e-books to their Kindle.
The rental process goes through the librarys e-book server, Overdrive, which shows up at the top of the librarys homepage as a large orange button. This server can be searched, much like a digital library catalog, for all of Westchester Library Systems e-books. After a patron decides what book he or she would like and proceeds to checkout, they are routed to Amazons homepage, where the book is actually downloaded to their reading device.
While the e-book stacks are still small in comparison to the library systems paper and ink collection, the e-books have become immensely popular, many with waiting lists.
We have a lot of people, I would think for the last year even more asking us, Can I download e-books from the library onto my kindle? Weve had a lot of people come in saying theyre shopping for an e-reader, and asking which one is compatible and which one is not." Getman said. "Then all of the sudden we got notice. Its great.
The library plans on offering an after-holidays workshop for e-readers sometime in January. The workshop will likely include several stations, as various e-readers have different operating systems. The library also plans to factor e-books into next years budget.
Its not in the budget, said Getman about e-book purchases this year. She added that some purchases could be made with unallocated funds. But next year were definitely putting it in the budget. Going forward we may buy less audio books, there may be certain types of materials we buy less of, as people get more into e-books.
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