Libraries Got Screwed by Amazon and Overdrive

[shinningsun30]

I mean you are talking about privacy and all this and that which is fine but as a consumer, you have to know that your info is being kept in stores databases... I mean come on. If you think they don't, you ave have lost it. @Serai3 I agree with yzzx2. As a librarian( No not one but work with many in my line of work for the Government)are you going to be sued for this Amazon-OverDrive deal? I doubt. I will put money on it that you won't. Thanks for the rant.

[shinningsun30]

I am going to have to disagree with you on this. I use multiple OverDrive libraries and love it. I use the Kindle and have no troubles. You are complaining about Amazon... Great, don't put Amazon and OverDrive in the same category. OverDrive doesn't, I repeat, DOES NOT profit from you (or anyone else) buying a book from Amazon for your Kindle. If you have a Kindle, you should know that Amazon is keeping information. Duh! Do you think anything is good about digital lending? Gosh.l

[peterotooled]

(Preface all statements in this post with "It seems that...")

Libraries and all other essentially anonymous constructs (the web, membership in organizations, any and all personal information, etc.) are being eroded by twin powers: The State (they're not called statistics for nothing) and The Corporation. The first seeks power and control over it's citizens; the second seeks to guarantee it's consumer base. We must resist! So, Vote! With your franchise and with your wallet. While you still can!!

[lotusson]

Amazon is a dick of a company. Have been for a while.

[Serai3]

All excellent reasons never to use a Kindle at all, whether for library books or purchasing books. It's incredible to me that people are now so cavalier about their private data. And all this for the "convenience" of a very expensive toy as opposed to dealing with real books. As the old saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted.

[666davidomar666]

YOU LOOK VERY NICE

[saturnine666]

I almost stood up out of my chair to applaud this video. (But ... Cat on my lap.) Anyway, I'm thrilled there are librarians like you out there taking my civil liberties seriously.

Also: Oh my GOD, what's with the haters? Scared to see an intelligent, articulate woman standing up to protect your constitutional rights & uphold her field's ethics? Is this, like, foreign to you? @yzzx2, @Meda01, @philistine2nd, y'all just sound like big babies.

Ignore the shitheads, Miss Houghton. You're spot on.

[yzzx2]

You as a librarian are not breaking any laws by someone else checking out a library book on a Kindle. You are being overly dramatic and silly.

[Serai3]

@yzzx2 Are you a librarian? Do you know anything about the profession? If not, then STFU.

[Foucault63]

It isn't just librarians who should be paying attention to this, but anyone who gets ebooks from their library with a Kindle. Barnes & Noble don't do this with Nook lending. Libraries are paying for library users to use this service, so there's not even a "no such thing as a free lunch" argument here. Greedy publishers and companies like Amazon will destroy the market for e-books if they're not careful.

[Meda01]

The second people start saying Amazon and Kindle might lead to a Police State is when you start losing me.

[axydlbaaxr]

I think many issues that you are angry about can be related to the agreement that the customer made with Amazon when they bought the proprietary piece of hardware that is a Kindle.

I really hope that libraries step up and advocate for Open Source, where things of this nature can be actively and selectively discouraged.

[philistine2nd]

I agree in principle. In reality, though, who really gives a shit what post-modernist, pseudo-intellectual, femtard group-think, apparatchic lit is read by yapping yentas like this aging broad? I'm sure the feminist goth chronicles and Eat, Pray, Love are high on the FBI list of subversive reading material.

[mellokittyx4]

@philistine2nd You are the point she is making.

[jazzmary4u]

My question is... is there an opt-out for Kindle owners who check out Amazon materials.. can they delete the tracking cookies? If not, maybe there should be.. then you would have more control over your privacy.. I point you to the current class-action lawsuits mounted against supertrackers like Kissmetric as a way to curb this desire for information.

[lebachai]

I'm not sure I'm qualified to evaluate every one of these statements, but there's certainly at least SOME of truth...and, I think, the deeper point is that librarians certainly did buy into a service without really evaluating the implications for their patrons. Overall, I think that is more troubling to me than the individual issues involved with the Kindle/Overdrive controversy.

[SirSuba]

I work in a library, and I can slowly see it being destroyed by this ability.

[scolford]

I respectfully disagree with your analysis and reject the notion that your outrage is shared by all librarians.

I personally don't buy Kindle ebooks for many of the reasons you list and more. But the users who benefit from this partnership have already decided to do so. Above all else, librarians shouldn't tell users what information to consume and I believe that extends to the platforms on which they choose to consume them.

More to say than fits here. May post a video response if I have time.

[michelemize]

Testify!

[sschlosnagle]

As a kindle owner and library patron, I would also like to voice my disappointment with Amazon in this matter. I think now is a great time to get them to address these concerns, with their Fire product coming out they will be trying to keep all the press positive.

[celestialkiddy]

I wonder what's going to happen when OverDrive WIN comes out.

[misterscribbler]

I am basically sympathetic with your argument here but I think most people digitally savvy enough to own/use an e-reader understand that the minute you handed off the borrow transaction to Amazon.com, they were no longer dealing with the library or its privacy policy. When you buy a physical book and put it on your shelves, the entire borrowing transactions happens inside your walls (so to speak) without a third, self-interested, for-profit party at the end.

[Monchanger]

@misterscribbler A physical book, when scanned during the check-out procedure could, _in theory_, be recorded in a database run by the company which sold the computer software to the library. That does not happen because librarians would never buy that software package, just as they would seriously reconsider partnering with Amazon had they known this.

As for library patrons knowing how Amazon works, using a Kindle does not imply a deep knowledge of technology, only a love of reading.

[skeskali]

How do we say it to people? Just like you said it here. Why should we continue to pull punches about this stuff?

[MiFarley74]

I've been telling folks to watch out for Amazon for a while and therefore I don't have a Kindle and didn't know the process for using it with Overdrive. Thanks for bringing these issues to the forefront.