Comments on An Amazon Digital Book Rental Plan?

• I get free books already
• Posted by Erik on October 25, 2010 at 5:00am EDT
• I like the idea of ebooks and have been considering an ipad or kindle to deal with my 1000 or so PDFs. However, I see two problems with a netflix-like subscription service: 1. Many of the things I want to read are not available as kindle books and probably never will be. 2. I already get all the books I can read for free through the library.
  
  The way public space, the public good and public libraries are so often cut out of discussions of the future frankly scares the crap out of me.

• Posted by Barbara Fister on October 25, 2010 at 8:15am EDT
• Erik already said more or less what I planned to say - I am willing to pay taxes to support a library that supports avid readers whether or not they can personally pay for their reading material. I am also willing to pay taxes to support inter-library lending among academic and public and school libraries (as we do in Minnesota) so that our pooled resources can benefit anyone who lives in a community willing to pool resources. (Heck, I'm reckless enough to want to pay for universal education.)
  
  Amazon and many publishers are not keen on this kind of sharing, even though without it, we would have a much less robust book culture. A publishing group in the UK recently issued a report opposing e-books in public libraries because there was a technical glitch that let a few people who weren't affiliated with a library borrow it. The glitch was fixed, but it was seen as a dire threat. More control is needed! Don't let anyone borrow an ebook unless they physically travel to the library!
  (http://bit.ly/9yjTBG)
  
  OMG! Look at that foot! What's it doing there? quick, shoot it, in case it... ow ow ow ow ow. Better reload in case another foot shows up...

• Sign me up!
• Posted by Ted Bongiovanni , Associate Director/Distance Learning at NYU on October 25, 2010 at 10:30am EDT
• Some books are keepers, others are not. As more and more of my reading is iPad centric, I have been wishing for a feature like this (as well as a way to enable digital copies of the print books I already own.) I fear though, what this might mean for libraries. In some ways, I think they need to solve the digital loan problem. It's something of a kludge when it comes to audio books. I want the subscription and I want my local library to thrive.

• Might work
• Posted by Phred at Land grant research university on October 25, 2010 at 10:30am EDT
• I think that this would be popular with people who do the sort of reading Mr. Kim does. I also think that students would be willing to pay the money for access to materials they need for papers that their library can no longer afford. It would be quicker than ILL.
  For myself, I have the same problems that Erik and Barbara Fister do. Much of what I need will never be on Kindle, and much that I need to own in some format so that I can refer back to it.

• Posted by Kelly Roberts at Slow Pendulums on October 25, 2010 at 1:30pm EDT
• I agree with the comments here. The rental idea makes good sense for you, Josh, because you actually read a lot of books per month, as opposed to simply buying a lot of books per month. I suspect a great deal of Kindle books are never even read, at least not all the way through. And this is where the money is made, on the impulse buy.
  
  
  
  

• Could this work for students and textbooks?
• Posted by George , Lecturer at Quite large state university system on October 26, 2010 at 5:00am EDT
• In addition to business/personal reading, your idea seems ready for the higher ed audience, if publishers would lighten up a bit. How about $10 a month gets a student access to anything a publisher sells through Amazon (or other leading brand)? Profs assign whatever they want from a publisher's catalog (complying, of course, with HEOA textbook provisions). Some students read a lot, some read less, just as is the case now. Amazon and publishers would get about $40 from each student each term. That could be a lot more than the profit from fewer students buying new textbooks at retail.
  
  This all may be moot for higher ed anyway, if open textbooks eat the publishers' lunch (another topic). Meanwhile, though, they could make profs and students somewhat happier customers.

• Not a fan
• Posted by Robin on October 27, 2010 at 4:00pm EDT
• While I can see where this would be a very useful plan for avid Kindle users, what I would like to see instead - or even in conjunction with this - is a plan for Kindle downloads for library use. Other e-reader formats have already started allowing library users to check out books to their readers. This would not be completely cost-prohibitive to Amazon because libraries would have to pay yearly subscription fees in order to allow their patrons to download to their Kindles. Although this will never happen, I wish all libraries would boycott buying books from Amazon until this happens. Maybe then some loss of revenue would hit home and they would be more open to something like this.

• Posted by Billy on January 3, 2011 at 2:15pm EST
• Why is it all about making money or profit. It is about having everyone read again. The society has lost its imagination and its focus on just reading. Reading is knowledge and the more venues we create to be able to capture anyone and everyone the joy of reading, the better