Kindle and My Personal Library
I love my Kindle (even though I don’t technically own a kindle, I own an iPad and Android tablet that have the Kindle reader on them). I have read far more books on my Kindle than I would have if I had been buying hardcover or paperbacks. I am sure I am not alone.
What really bothers me about the Kindle is that I can’t share the books I have purchased with others. If I had bought those very same books in paper form, I could have lent them to my friends, and they could have lent their books to me. It seems non-sensical that I can’t do the same thing with an electronic copy. Amazon yesterday announced that you will be able to rent textbooks, and it got me thinking about my library.
If I had my wishes for Kindle, they would take a couple of forms.
- Let me share my library, and let others “check out” books from me. Just like I can share a playlist, publish it, and let my friends enjoy it, I would like to be able to share my personal library. My friends could then come to my library and see what is available (stuff I am willing to share), what is checked in and what is checked out. I could establish parameters around how long a particular book is able to be checked out, just like a regular public library. While the book is checked out, I would not be able to read it on my Kindle. On the day it is due back, it is simply removed from the borrower’s Kindle and returned to my stock. Amazon could keep track of how many times the book has been lent, and maybe cap it to prevent excessive sharing. If I could share any book up to three times, that would be ideal. Amazon is or is going to allow you to check out books from your public library’s Kindle stash, so why not allow the same thing for my personal stash?
- I should be able to sell my books to someone else in an Amazon marketplace of some kind. Again, I can do this with a paper book, so I should be able to do it with a digital book. Copyright law allows for this through the first-sale doctrine, but I lose that right with the e-version of the same book.
Both of these things seem so obvious. If we have learned anything from watching the music industry crumble, it is that protecting for the sake of protecting is not a viable strategy.
If you use another e-reader, do they have these features already? If so, maybe I should just switch. If not, what will it take for Amazon and others to begin to offer these services?