Underwhelmed by Overdrive

Today I spent the better part of an hour trying to get OverDrive to work. Here in BC, OverDrive has been branded as an extension of BC Libraries: Libraries without walls, and has been licensed by the consortium for all BC public Libraries by the provincial department responsible for libraries: Public Libraries Services Branch (PLSB).

After an hour of playing with the system I was unable to get it working. This is not indicative of my skills, but of a poorly conceived product. My first issue is that client, the OverDrive Console, which I was required to install on my system, delivered error messages instead of content. To be fair, the error was engendered by problems with the Windows Media Player, but the effect was the same: a great big waste of time installing, uninstalling and restarting.

Next, the books I wanted were not in. This is ridiculous. The "books" are digital. They are infinately replicable. They are not scarce physical copies on a shelf, and to treat them as such is the imposition of an artificial limitation and an barrier to access. Surely a better contract could have been negotiated.

Finally, and this is the real deal-breaker, OverDrive does not work on any of my four MP3 players: My tablet (Nokia N800), my iPod Shuffle, my Palm (Tungston) or my phone (Motorola v3t). They've bought a service, that will not work on most hardware because most platforms cant handle the DRM (Digital Rights Management).

DRM is always a barrier to access and essentially breaks our devices, removing otherwise available functionality. For these reasons, as a librarian, I find DRM abhorrent, and I feel that as a profession we say no to DRM. We spend a lot of money on DRM locked products, and if we use our collective economic clout, vendors will listen