online libraries?

[dpopiz]

is there any sort of place like netflix but for books? I mean like a public library, but through the mail, so you have access to a much larger variety.

 

[Dissipate]

Interesting idea but I would think not. The reason being is that the shipping cost for each book would be expensive. With Netflix the DVDs can be sent through regular first class mail but books would obviously cost more to ship.

 

[Stratum9]

God, I wish there was something like this! I live in Alaska and I love to read. But I'm very selective about my reading material and the libraries here often do not have what I'm looking for. They'll have plenty of copies of the DaVinci Code but not a single copy of J.M Coetzee, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. So I'm forced to buy my books from Amazon, which means waiting until I have money before I can read anything!

We do have the Interlibrary Loan system where if my local library doesn't have a particular book but a branch in another town does, they will order it from that branch so I can check it out from my branch. I can do it all from the library web site, but I still have to go to the library to get the book itself.

I'm looking forward to when E-Ink becomes the norm. Then we might have something more like what you are talking about in your post.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Stratum9
God, I wish there was something like this! I live in Alaska and I love to read. But I'm very selective about my reading material and the libraries here often do not have what I'm looking for. They'll have plenty of copies of the DaVinci Code but not a single copy of J.M Coetzee, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. So I'm forced to buy my books from Amazon, which means waiting until I have money before I can read anything!

We do have the Interlibrary Loan system where if my local library doesn't have a particular book but a branch in another town does, they will order it from that branch so I can check it out from my branch. I can do it all from the library web site, but I still have to go to the library to get the book itself.

I'm looking forward to when E-Ink becomes the norm. Then we might have something more like what you are talking about in your post.

Its coming, just got to be patient. The real barrier will be publishers putting out ebooks. ebooks upsets their business model for various reasons. 🙁

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
Interesting idea but I would think not. The reason being is that the shipping cost for each book would be expensive. With Netflix the DVDs can be sent through regular first class mail but books would obviously cost more to ship.

Media mail.