[Libs-Or] Kindle loan policies for libraries - Compilation

Wed Dec 26 09:19:14 PST 2012

Here is a compilation of the responses I have received regarding Kindle circulation. I appreciate all the help, especially attaching agreement forms. I'm not sure if I will be able to attach them to this compilation, if you are interested, please e-mail directly and I can send them to you individually. Thank you everyone! -Esther 

Esther Moberg
Director, Seaside Public Library
Seaside, Oregon
emoberg at cityofseaside.us
503-738-6742
www.seasidelibrary.org
www.facebook.com/seasidepubliclibrary

We have been circulating 18 eReaders since this summer, 9 Nooks and 9 Kindles. Each of the devices is pre-loaded with 20 titles, and each device has its own genre. Our eReaders are non-holdable and non-renewable, and circulate for 14 days. We do not require an agreement to borrow the devices and there is no age restriction. Replacement cost is set at $140.00 to cover the device, charging cord and case. We don't charge for the books because they are in the cloud and we can reload them onto a new device if necessary. I have not locked down the devices, but just made sure my credit card information was removed from the Barnes and Noble and Amazon accounts after I loaded the devices.

Let me know if you need any other information. The project has been really successful here.

    Hope your day is going good. I am the Technical Services Librarian at the Durango Public Library in Durango, Colorado and would like to share our Nook policies with you. 
     As for our Nook checkouts they have been very popular, we have been circulating them for about two years and have 40 of them in circulation. They include the original white one, the color Nook and the simple touch Nook. We placed them in the kit bags used for the read along juvenile books and CD, it includes the Nook, charge cord, a "What's in the Bag" card and a copy of the "Quick Start Guide" that comes with the Nook. They can only be checkout and returned at the Reference desk, who gives them to the IS department for cleanup and charging. We do allow our patrons to download titles from Overdrive and OneClickDigital and offer regular classes for their usage. 
   Before a patron can check one out they are required to review a quick tutorial and sign an agreement form. We place a note in their library record stating "ereader certified", the date, and initials of the person entering the information and only check them out to patrons 17 and older. When we purchase the Nooks we also purchase the extend warranty and have had to send one of our Color Nooks back because of a broken screen. If one is lost we charge the patron for the cost of the devise and over the past two years have only had one replaced with this process. Overall most patrons do not get into the devise and make changes but we did have one person who actually contacted Barnes and Noble and had them deregister the devise from our account and placed on her account. Needless to say she is no longer able to checkout Nooks and the Head of our IS department contacted Barnes and Noble and informed them of the situation. 
    I have attached copies of our tutorial, agreement forms and other ereader guidelines. I have also included a link to our catalog so you can see how I have categorized our the different Nooks with different titles. Sorry if my message is a little lengthy but it there was a lot to share. Hope this helps and please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions. 

http://www.durangopubliclibrary.org/search~S7/?searchtype=t&searcharg=nook&searchscope=7&SORT=D&extended=0&searchlimits=&searchorigarg=tnok

I am attaching a copy of the agreement that we have patrons sign, which will answer some of your questions.  Most of our Kindles check out for three weeks (like books), but we do have some that are part of our Best Seller collection.  These check out for two weeks (like the rest of our Best Seller books). We treat them a lot like books, except that we require a contract and that borrowers be at least 18 (although we are rethinking the age restriction).  The only other difference is that the late fee is $1/day, which is more than for our books, but the same as what we charge for DVDs and book club kits.  Some of our newer Kindles cost less than the original $139 version, which is reflected in the borrowing agreement for those Kindles.

We have not had any loss or damage.  We have had patrons delete titles both inadvertently (one title) and intentionally (all titles).

We have all Kindles, partially because I started this program before the Nook Simple Touch was released.  I am able to "deregister" them before circulation, which leaves the content that I've added on the device but prevents future purchasing.  I only have to re-register the devices when I want to update the content on them.

Another Washington County library, Hillsboro Public Library, is circulating both Kindles and Nooks.  Their contact person is Hillary Ostlund: Hillary.Ostlund at hillsboro-oregon.gov  Beaverton City Library has just started lending e-readers as well.

What we have are the base model kindle (Retails for around 65-70) and a cover (retails around 15).  We have a policy that all patrons who wish to use the kindle are required to read, and then sign an acknowledgement and acceptance form.  They get to keep the policy page, while we keep the acceptance and acknowledgement.  The policy is, essentially, that they won't break it, or if they do they agree to pay for it.  They also agree to never loan it to anyone else, and to always return it inside, to a staff member.  This is to ensure that it doesn't get damaged in the book drop, or stolen by being left on a counter when a staff person isn't around. 

We maintain the kindles, in the sense that when they are returned, the contents are inspected to ensure that nothing has been deleted (And if so, we reload that deleted content), and then the Kindle is plugged into a charging cable, of which we have 4 available, hooked up to a powered USB hub (But not a computer), specifically intended for use as a charging station only. 

The content is selected by the staff who also select collection materials.  The base model kindles keep content even after a user de-registers the device, so we "register" it to our account when we want to load, or re-load, content.  After we finish loading content, we simply de-register the kindle.  The de-registering prevents patrons from purchasing content through the city account!  Once it's got content and is charged up, we send it out.  If a patron returns and wants to charge the kindle part way through their loan, we usually will lend them one of the charging cables (retail value equal to or less than 5 dollars), because they are simple micro-usb cables, which are so common that they are easy to replace...most phones and digital cameras use the same cable these days. 

If a patron doesn't return the kindle to a staff person, they are fined $5.00...If a patron returns the kindle to the book drop, they are charged $25.00...if the kindle, or case, is damaged, the patron pays replacement cost for the damaged item. 

Good luck!  The Kindle's have been ridiculously popular here!  One change I would make to our policy would be to not separate the content on the kindles into a different Genre on each Kindle...some of them, such as the Romance Content Kindle, don't check out often.  If each Kindle has the same content, I think that they would all be out all the time, which is kind of the point, isn't it!

Here are the instructions that we have created based on Lake Oswego's kindle policy. It's important, we found, that the kindles go out the door being de-registered from our account so that a patron cannot add anything onto our kindles. There is some risk and we have to look at each one as they come in, but it's been wildly popular. We have 5. We could easily get more and have them checked out all the time too.

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I'll see if I can dig up our policy for the very old Sony ebook readers that we are currently loaning. In the mean time, I'll share what I've learned in the last week or so as I looking in to updating our readers.

The newer sony readers (PRS-T1 and PRS-T2) have the Overdrive app 'baked in' to them. Navigating the app on an e-ink screen isn't the best experience, but borrowers will be able to check out Library2Go books without needing any equipment aside from wifi access. Factory settings can be restored by a pressing a mysterious combination of buttons.

The kindle paperwhite and other e-ink kindles would also work. I successfully registered a paperwhite to a newly created test account on amazon without entering any credit card information. Library2Go loans work fine. Purchases can only be made by a borrower if he/she makes the payment. This method would work fine if you wanted to preload the readers with a stable of public domain ebooks (sideloaded from the Calibre ebook software using a USB cable), or if you circulate it 'naked' and have borrowers add their own titles using Library2Go. 

If you want to pre-load it with ebooks you purchased from Amazon, there may still be a way. It seems that credit card companies have dummy credit card numbers that are used to test payment processing systems. You would purchase the ebooks with a legitimate card, then change your payment information to a dummy card (e.g. 4111111111111111 for VISA). Amazon will accept this as a payment method, but no purchases can be made with it. I have confirmed that Amazon will accept a dummy number as a payment method, but I haven't given this a thorough test.

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I actually spent time working at Barnes & Noble not long ago and you could call one of their stores and chat with a Nook specialist (I'd recommend Ramone @ Oak Park, KS - 913-492-8187) about the different ways to lock down the accounts and make them better suited for loaning. I was going to look at my device for you, but I hacked it and so now it's not a "Nook" but a general Android device. Whoops! 

Hope that helps if no one gets back to you with recommendations about the device itself.
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