Gerrit van Dyk of Shaping Libraries is reporting that it is okay for libraries to lend Kindles to their customers.
Shaping Libraries: Amazon: “OK to Lend Kindles in Libraries”
Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content.
Amazon said this only applies to for-profit ventures. “If you’re gonna let someone borrow the Kindle just to read a book, you should be fine.”
To answer my own questions. And of course these are my own opinions and not Sno-Isle’s so please don’t read more into them than that.
Could we? Well maybe, it’s interesting to hear this interpretation from Amazon regarding the TOS for Kindle but I’d still be pretty wary.
Should we? No.
Would we? No. I think it’s unlikely that the library would want to get into the lending equipment business.
I’m throwing it out there to you all, what are your thoughts about the Kindle and libraries.
posting by jim
4 responses so far ↓
siloak // March 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm
How about for use in the library? I’m interested in Amazon’s model for sales where once you’ve bought a title you can store it on their archive and download any number of times, to a variety of devices. What’s your take on that? Mary C
Jim McCluskey // March 16, 2009 at 1:50 pm
In library use? It might work, but we’d have to work out the usual bugs of how to link the equipment to the card holder. Overall, I’m just not interested in loaning a nearly $400.00 dollar piece of equipment to anyone.
The sales model question is an interesting one. I think that you may only be able to download it through your own Kindle store site to devices you register there. I think Amazon probably wouldn’t be excited about or allow anyone to transfer the same book over and over again to different devices. But I’m just guessing on that one.
myounker // March 16, 2009 at 4:08 pm
amazon doesn’t have a rep as playing nice with the library world. i’d be shocked if they developed a model that worked for libraries – perhaps overdrive is trying to work something out? so unless non-kindle ebook formats start to work on the kindle….
the kindle, both generations, is waaaay too flimsy to lend.
Terry Beck // March 17, 2009 at 6:15 am
As interesting as the concept is, they’re really designed for a single reader, not the masses. The libraries who are currently loaning kindles have to block/unblock each time that they loan it out (to avoid users racking up credit card charges). Frankly, if I had one, I’d want access to all its features, not just a single title.