Mama-Come-Lately

We have a fantastic library system, but they really have their heads up their butts when it comes to digital book lending.

The e-book selection is odd and not terribly wide. Maybe they’re just getting going, or the person who’s in charge of picking titles has terrible taste. I can let this one go.

Want to search the e-books? Good luck with that — the interface is clunky and shunts you off to weird places, including the conventional collection.

The length of the lending period for e-books is anywhere from seven days to two weeks. And you can’t renew them. You have to go back through the download lending system, which is separate from the system for reserving physical books, DVDs and CDs. And then you might have to wait while a copy becomes available before you’re granted another seven days with the book.

What’s the point? Who reads that fast? Who wants to read a book for seven days at a time with breaks of God knows how long in between? Aren’t they supposed to be encouraging reading?

Maybe it’s a licensing issue, or a cost issue, but come on, there has to be some way to get it together so readers can, you know, read the books, use the library, yadda yadda.

I’m almost halfway through the digital version of Cloud Atlas (really enjoying it by the way, it’s great) and every time I open it, all I can think is that I only have a few more days with it before it vaporizes from my device. It’s kind of stressful. Most of my reading happens right before I go to sleep. I want to relax and enjoy, not whiz through the prose I’m meant to be enjoying.

And I have to say, I don’t really enjoy digital reading all that much anyway. Pardon me while I go reserve a physical copy of Cloud Atlas so I can finish it the old-fashioned way.