By BEN KLEIN
The Warren Public Library system will be expanding the ebook and audiobook collection, thanks to a $12,000 grant from the Defrees Family Memorial Fund.
Warren Public Library Director Patricia Sherbondy said the grant will benefit all the public libraries in Warren County.
"We're very happy about that and very grateful to the Defrees Family Memorial Fund," she said.
The grant could not come at a better time, as publisher HarperCollins has yet to change its decision to cap ebook circulations to 26 checkouts before the book is no longer available and the library has to purchase the book again.
Robert Crowley, a member of the DeFrees Family Memorial Fund oversight committee, said the committee meets twice a year to review grant requests in order to determine what will and what will not be supported.
Crowley said the decision to give the grant was a response to the existing needs of the community and is in line with the DeFrees Family Memorial Fund mission to "provide leadership through philanthropy by diligently serving the interests of our trust beneficiaries, responding to the existing needs of the community and providing donors the opportunity to make a meaningful and beneficial impact on the future of Warren County."
"We think of the library as a long-term partner when it comes to that," he said.
Users of Amazon's Kindle ereader will also be happy to hear the device is compatible with the Overdrive software that powers many online catalogs in libraries across the country.
Sherbondy said the service would become available at the end of the year.
According to Overdrive's Digital Library Blog, libraries won't have to make purchases to have compatibility and users existing collection of ebooks will be available for Kindle.
"That's good new for everyone," Sherbondy said, adding, "Good news for libraries and big news for Kindle users."
Sherbondy said HarperCollins has expressed interest in working with the libraries to come up with a solution to the ebook checkout limit that works for everyone. However, HarperCollins has "certainly not retracted their current policy," she said.
So far, 67, 264 people have signed the online petition Tell HarperCollins: Limited Checkouts on eBooks is Wrong for Librarie son at www.change.org.
Authors from HarperCollins have even criticized the policy themselves.
Marilyn Johnson, author of "This Book Is Overdue!", said on her blog she wasn't consulted over the policy from HarperCollins.
"This isn't what I want, e-books with evaporating powers! Are you kidding? No author wants to write a book with the power to disappear. We want the opposite: We want to write books that will last," she wrote.
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