Ways to borrow a wider range of ebooks and audiobooks

[FallenNight]

I have a kobo and like to borrow. My local library uses borrow box and has quite a small selection.

Does anyone use overdrive from the libraries consortium and find that the selection of books is good. Or I think if you work in London you are able to get a library card for some London libraires.

I am basically looking for a way to borrow a wider selection of ebook and eaudio books, does anyone have any advice.

Thanks very much.

I use Overdrive and Libby on an Android tablet. Our local library seems to have a very limited selection of books. The access to magazines is OK.
Even popular authors have only one or two books but more choice as audio books.

I access The Libraries Consortium and the Borough of Camden ebook/audiobook services (I used to work in central London and just popped in a local library to register) on Libby and both of them have much more variety than any Borrow box service I have used. I would say that the consortium edges ahead as the best.

Thanks @CrossPurposes my Dh works in London so perhaps I can get him to join one of the libraries from the consortium and use his card on my Kobo.

Its frustrating @Juneclaire my local library has such a small selection of eBooks - they are part of the libraries consortium, but only for actual books, their electronic library is through borrow box and is pretty small. Lots of Richard Osmond type fast holiday reads but not a lot else.

I thought I would try some more fantasy after reading Priory of the Orange Tree looked at Sarah J Maas but they have a really random selection, like book 2 and 4 of a series but not books one and 3 or just one of another series. Three of one of the longer ones but not necessarily book 1. Also wanted to get Percy Jackson for my DC but they have a random selection of them, so we have picked up the whole collection week by week in various local chairty shops!

I can access BorrowBox, Libby, and ULibrary through my Scottish public library card. They all have gaps, but I find Libby the most comprehensive - I wonder if it varies according to your local library network? Libby directs you to eg BorrowBox if they're missing certain titles in a series. I did finally resort to joining Audible as well.

Yes, I have jointed Audible to fill the gaps, but its expensive! I'd love to be able to use just the library if I could. I also buy direct from Kobo when they have offers. But the offers are not always things that I want to read.

Also, with a Kobo if you put your library card into the device you can borrow overdrive content direct from the kobo. Where as borrow box items I have to plug my kobo into my laptop. Download the title from borrow box to adobe. Then transfer the item in adobe from there to the Kobo. Half the time the authorization fails and the transferred book cannot be opened on the device. It is so annoying and convoluted. But I prefer my Kobo to my tablet as the screen is far easier on the eyes for reading and I have recently had surgery on my eyes.

Life is never simple, particularly if you are trying to find ways to do things without spending a fortune.

I have library cards at London Borough of Bexley, Kent, and City of London and between them, I can almost always find what I want on Libby without too much of a wait.

I’ve got Libby, BorrowBox & ULibrary but what’s Overdrive?

Librivox does free audio books (basically those old enough to be out of copyright). Narrators are variable - some are done by teams of people, other by individual narrators. The latter are usually better. Mark Smith, Karen Savage and the Alan/Hazel Chant are all very good narrators there.

Overdrive is the company that makes the Libby app.

Thanks @CrossPurposes.

I use Libby and borrow box 😊

My library uses Borrowbox and I could never find anything I wanted to read - it was full of mass popularity chick-lit and spy thrillers, neither of which I read. There were absolutely no classics for instance.

My main ebook source now is borrowing from archive.org [legal]. It's a vast collection if you like classics. Audiobooks to borrow on there as well.

ETA: Its associated site openlibrary is better to search. You can restrict your search to ebooks only. When you click to borrow it takes you to archive.org.

I think this is why Kindle works so much better. Yes, with the other ereaders in theory you can borrow from the library, but the selection is often very poor and waiting lists to borrow what you want very long.

But with Kindle, you can pay for Kindle Unlimited if the books you want are on there, or track prices and buy at 99p. I only buy at that price and have many unread books, it's well worth the few quid a month I spend as I always have a big choice of books to read.

Kobo also has Kobo Plus, which is like Kindle Unlimited and also has regular 99p sales. It also has the moral high ground of not forcing authors to be exclusive to them (of course that's not a benefit if those are the authors you want to read!) and being compatible with Libby.

One thing many people don't know is that you can sign up to multiple libraries e.g. near home, near work, near kids school etc. Once you do, you can search their digital catalogues at the same time in Libby and borrow from wherever it's available fastest. And the integration between Libby/Overdrive and Kobo is pretty seamless. It's a bit more to set up than buying digital books but I have saved 100s of pound this year alone doing it.

If you subscribe to Amazon Music, it entitles you to one audio book a month.

I cancelled Amazon Audible and just use this facility.