Philadelphia Digital Library

[lmwbasye]

I've heard others on here mention that they paid for membership to this. I'm having a very difficult time lately finding the books I want to read (general fiction). I have access to two separate overdrive libraries (US Army one and local city one) and even have tried the post library and the city library for paper books. And 8 times out of 10 I strike out. It's so frustrating that the only way I can read so many of these books lately is by purchasing them. I never remember this being the case anywhere I've lived before. If I couldn't find it for my Kindle, I could always at least just borrow it in paper...but that doesn't seem to be an option most times lately.

I'm considering the membership to the Philadelphia one and was wondering for those of you who have paid for this, have you been satisfied. How often have they not had a book you were interested in?

[Aishe]

I'm bumping this up because I'm interested as well.

[TwoBees]

I was looking for info on their webpage after seeing your post, and now I'm curious too. I'm calling today as soon as they open and I'll report back.

[wellyes]

I am a member of a few digital libraries and my experience is that they all tend to have the same handful of books. Publishers only allow certain titles to be released for Kindle via Overdrive.

OK I looked up Philadelphia Overdrive library, did a search for Kindle books, here is what they have:
http://freelibrary.lib.overdrive.com/4C83989D-584A-47AF-B792-D9CB57784B27/10/50/en/SearchResults.htm?SearchID=10111388s&SortBy=Relevancy

[TwoBees]

I am a member of a few digital libraries and my experience is that they all tend to have the same handful of books. Publishers only allow certain titles to be released for Kindle via Overdrive.

OK I looked up Philadelphia Overdrive library, did a search for Kindle books, here is what they have:
http://freelibrary.lib.overdrive.com/4C83989D-584A-47AF-B792-D9CB57784B27/10/50/en/SearchResults.htm?SearchID=10111388s&SortBy=Relevancy

The link didn't work for me, but I also did a search and came up with over 11,000 ebooks availabe for kindle. My local library has only 3000. I don't know if that search identifies individual titles or individual books (eg, if the library has 10 copies of an ebook, does that count in the search as 1 book or 10?)

[TwoBees]

Here's the info:

Non-Philadelphia residents can sign up for a library card for $35/year. This provides access to all library services, including ebooks.

You can apply for a card here:
http://libwww.freelibrary.org/register/getcard1.cfm

HTH!

ETA: Veterans and members of the Armed Services can also obtain a Free Library card without charge.

[trales]

Is your library part of an interlibrary loan network, I just had two books sent to NH from Wisconsin that DD wanted to read through interlibrary loan.

You can also join your state and community college libraries, which tend to have amazing interlibrary loan departments.

I belong to Boston Public Library, our local NH library and the community college system library and even then there is not a ton of what I like to read digital, but I can get everything I want through interlibrary loan.

[brittone2]

FLoP also lets you access 3 songs per week from the Sony catalog (Freegal), and they have the Freading selections too (you get so many tokens per week to spend on books in a separate collection. Many meh books, but there are some semi-decent ones too I think).