Politics & Government

E-Reader Help Offered

Canton Public Library offers regular sessions to help patrons download electronic library books.

 

After the holidays, numerous patrons came to with a variation of the same question — "How do I download library books to my e-reader?"

One day last week, Sarah McCusker, head of Technology at Canton Public Library, found herself at the reference desk for about three hours answering questions. 

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"No sooner would one person leave, the next person would walk up," she said. 

To help the increasing numbers of e-reader users access the library's electronic book titles, McCusker is hosting a series of walk-in sessions.

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She held the first one Thursday to help owners of Kindles, Nooks and other e-readers download books from the Overdrive system the library uses.

In addition to the technical instructions and difference of the devices, she went over the parameters of e-books. While there are more than 2,500 titles available, there is often a waiting list, she said. 

Unfortunately publishers and others have set up a "print borrowing model," McCusker said. So if five copies of a book are available, only five people can use the e-books at one time. And the copies are shared among more than 30 libraries in a local consortium. While some towns have access to more, that takes additional funding Canton doesn't currently offer. A few area towns are not part of the system, which gives access based on a patron's library card. 

"There's a lot of people using a limited number of resources," she said. 

But there are advantages to checking out e-books. 

Of course, the reader is easy to carry. Titles can be checked out for one, two or three weeks and always returned early but there are never any late fees since after the allotted time the patron simply won't be able to access the title. 

McCusker said the help sessions will be ongoing but so far the library has scheduled the following. 

  • Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 3 p.m. 
  • Wednesday, Jan, 25 at 6:30 p.m. 
  • Saturday, Feb. 4 at 1 p.m. 

The library will also have two Kindles and two Nooks available for loan within the next few weeks. Some titles will come pre-loaded.


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