Tech Table Thursday, July 10, 2014
July 10, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest.
Justin: Thursday, Diana.
Diana: Yeah, it is.
Justin: Yeah, it is, and we’re going to talk about a theme today. You know, recently we were talking about finding some new things to read and some websites on places to find new books, new titles to read. Today we’re going to discuss how to get those books in a digital format.
Diana: Wow. Well, I have a Kindle so this is right up my alley.
Justin: Yes, it is. I’m old-fashioned. I like my books so I can throw them across the room if I get mad.
Diana: Well, if you get the right case for your Kindle.
Justin: Right, can you imagine me winging a Kindle across the room? Not a good idea!
Diana: Don’t try it out with mine, okay?
Justin: I know people that have that before but no. I do like to, and you know, you can’t really kill a bug or a spider with your Kindle either.
Diana: No, no.
Justin: But you can do that with a book. Just bop it!
Diana: No, I run and get you.
Justin: Yeah, exactly! There you go. And I go get a book. So Amazon, of course, is the place that most people think of e-books, and they sell most of their books in paper copy and as e-books. You know, and so Amazon is huge for this, and if you have an Amazon Prime membership, you can download one free e-book each month.
Diana: I knew this but I’ve never done it.
Justin: Right. You should do it because we do, we are Prime members.
Diana: I should, although I don’t have time to read one book a month.
Justin: Right, right. And Amazon also has thousands of book titles available for free, and all you have to do is visit Amazon.com and in the search bar, type “free e-book.”
Diana: Yes.
Justin: Then click in the Kindle Store and it will give you all sorts of things. Now, you don’t have to have a Kindle. We should note that, for Amazon.
Diana: True.
Justin: It makes free Kindle readers for most smartphones, computers, tablets.
Diana: Yeah, some smartphones even come with it on it automatically.
Justin: Exactly. Now, you know, libraries — you’re a library fan.
Diana: I do like a good library.
Justin: I was always a library fan, too, although when I was a kid, I was scared of the librarian, so it scared me to go to the library.
Diana: That’s sad.
Justin: It is. She just looked scary to me. She looked kind of big and mean so I didn’t mess with her, and you need to be really quiet there. It’s just, you know, it was scary. So, that’s a sad story, really, but libraries have e-books now. How do you get an e-book from a library, Diana?
Diana: Well, each library has their own system but sometimes you can get it right off their website. Sometimes you do need to go there and just talk to them. So, what I would recommend is either call your local library or visit them in person, and just ask them how they go about it because everyone is a little bit different. You know, concurrently, did you know that many metro libraries in Iowa allow residents of rural areas to get library cards?
Justin: I did not know that.
Diana: Yes, so even if you are in a small town, not close to one of those metro areas, you can still access the large collection of e-books available from, say, Cedar Rapids.
Justin: That’s cool.
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: Very interesting. Now, there’s also BookLending.com. BookLending is essentially a crowd-sourced digital library. So, you can share books that you own or borrow one from someone else. Now, this sounds like it’s going to have authors and copyright owners not really happy because you’re not really paying.
Diana: Yeah, I don’t…
Justin: I don’t know how that works.
Diana: Not sure.
Justin: But I have heard of BookLending.com, so you could check it out. But you know, the best part of lending a digital book, you don’t have to worry about giving it back because after 14 days, it automatically returns to you.
Diana: Yes, because sometimes I’m thinking: okay, who did I loan that book to? How do I get it back from them without seeming, you know, annoying?
Justin: Exactly. So, there are a lot of e-book sources out there depending on what avenue you want to go down.
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: So, even the old-fashioned library. So, until next time.
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at AskMPA.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com.
Justin: And thanks for listening.
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