Adding Public Library Content to your Kobo ebook Reader
This brief tutorial will show you how to add ebook content from your local public library to your Kobo ebook reader. I wanted to show this for two reason:
- I haven't seen this complete set of instructions anywhere else.
- To illustrate how cumbersome the process is, thereby demonstrating how DRM is hindering the proliferation of ebooks. (Imagine if mp3's were so locked down in 1999, no one would bother owning an iPod)
I'll be demonstrating with the St. Catharines Public Library Digtial Media Collection: http://overdrive.stcatharines.library.on.ca/. This platform is based on the Overdrive Media system. Since I just bought my Kobo, that'll be the ebook reader.
The Steps
Install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) - First things first, you should plugin the Kobo before attempting to install ADE. It won't authorize the device properly unless it is already there. Head to http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/ scroll down a bit and you'll see the 'Install' link.
Interesting bit of trivia: the application is an Adobe Air app and will install nicely with Wine for Ubuntu (link)
You'll need to accept the license and run through a setup wizard which will force you to create an account with Adobe.
Mmmm, soothing black background
Yet another web account to remember
Authorizing the Kobo through ADE - Before you can add any content to the ereader you need to have it authorized with the software. If you have plugged it in the usb before installation it should auto-detect it and prompt you to complete the process. After it is done you'll see the Kobo as an item in your Library.
It's Kobo Time Y'all
Finding and downloading the ebook content - Start by navigating to the library site, in our case: http://overdrive.stcatharineslibrary.on.ca Then find the e-book you want to read. Make sure the record has 'Adobe EPUB ebook' in the description. It is easy to begin searching and then end up looking at an audio book instead. Add the item to your cart, login, and then 'checkout'.
Find yer book
Add to cart, proceed to checkout, login with your library account
You get a choice of lending periods, but 14 days is the longest
After it is all done click 'Download' you'll end up with a .ascm file
Authorizing the ebook through ADE - Take the file you downloaded in the previous step and drag it into the main window of ADE. It will then automatically download the epub file associated with the 'key file' you gave it.
So Adobe is the gatekeeper to the actual document. The Library, Overdrive, and Kobo don't do content wrangling. You ask politely for a copy of the book with a rights file the library supplies and Adobe passes you the final book.
The acsm file won't do anything when you double click it. It's best to just drag and drop it. Then your book will download automagicially.
Transferring the book to the Kobo - Another instance of dragging and dropping. Drag the book from the right side of ADE over to your KOBOeReader icon. You'll see a quick progress bar zip by and finally, your book will be ready to go.
It happened so fast I couldn't get a screen cap of the transfer
Start reading - Close down ADE, eject your Kobo and after the sync process is completed head to your 'My Books' section. Navigate to your new book and bask in the glow of e-ink.
I can feel my tax dollars at work
Ebooks aren't books!?
The good thing about ebooks is that in some way they are just like books... they read nicely, they have illustrations if you're lucky, and generally make you smarter. However in some respects they are nothing like books and shouldn't be treated as such. For instance, an ebook can be in many places at one time (ie copied). So if I read SuperFeakonomics there is no reason why you can't be reading it at the same time as me. Yet for some reason eBook providers seem to try to parallel the analogy of the ebook to a physical book in ways that they shouldn't. I'm looking right at you NetLibrary! Here's what happens after I loaded the book:
I Just wanna get my SuperFreak on!
I get that this is a licensing thing but it seems to me like a very artificial constraint. There is no marginal cost to create another ebook, but I'm sure each additional license for more copies of the book gets super expensive.
The process all told
Most of the work with getting this going is the initial setup stage of getting Adobe Digital Editions downloaded, and authorizing the reader. You only need to do that once so I can't complain much about that. What I can complain about is the amount of hoops to jump through to read a book. I do commend content providers for not letting the epub file go the way of the mp3. However there is an emergent market forming, many pirates out there are starting to share ebooks...
Comments
52 comments postedThank you so much. I have been trying with no success to run my library book through Calibre to get it on my Kobo. Have you used this option? I had NO success but your suggestion worked. Wow...how tedious. Thanks.
The only think to keep in mind with Calibre is that it won't touch anything that has DRM on it. So the Adobe Digital Editions stuff probably won't copy over easily. I do use Calibre to load up other content on the Kobo and it works like a charm.
thanks so much for your post. you're right, there was no where else that i could find any instructions for accessing the library (even though my local library recently had a draw for a kobo reader). I followed your instructions and have a couple of new books on my kobo to enjoy on the commute into work. It only took about 30 minutes, the Adobe download was very quick. It was actually longer to find an available ebook that I wanted to borrow and then to find the acm file to drag and drop into the ADE application.
It was't easy, but i finally have two new ebooks that I requested over a month ago ?? from my library. Now this is going to sound dumb - but do I only have three weeks to read these books? Will they disappear after that time off my Kobo? Thanks again.
I believe your checkout will begin once you download the book from Adobe. After the time expires your book just wont' open. So it look like it's time to read.
Thank you SO much for taking the time to lay this out so clearly. It gave me a place to start- and yet it still took me over 6 hours- yes, HOURS- to figure it out because ADE kept giving me an error message, which I EVENTUALLY dug to decode as meaning my computer's TIME ZONE was set incorrectly. If anyone else gets an "ADEPT_REQUEST_EXPIRED" error message, check your time, date and TIME ZONE settings on your computer. I am too exhausted now to read the freakin' library book now...! but thanks!!!
Holy Geeze. I can't believe it. It's a real shame these barrier keep cropping up. (Judging by all the comments on this post) You'd think Adobe and Kobo would try to make life easier.
Tim - Thanks so much for the instructions - we have two KOBOs to set up - one on MAC, one regular PC - both now going - big thanks! Really disappointed KOBO didn't see fit to print similat set of instructions - caused us some frustration!
Has anyone figured out a step saving process to get from the public library site to KOBO without the save to file, open in ADE? this should be really simple...
Thanks again!
John B
Yeah, it would be great if you could go directly from the Library site to the Kobo. However I think you're stuck with Adobe sitting in the middle. It's not quite the same but there is an Overdrive App that will browser the books directly but of course that cuts out putting them on the Kobo.
HI there, Thanks for your helpful instructions. I have successfully gotten through all the steps except when it comes time to drag and drop my ebook from Digital Editions onto my Koboereader file on my desktop. I have a Mac. Is there something I am doing wrong? I have registered with Adobe and everything, and re-started my Kobo a bunch of times. Adobe pulls the ebook (it is a epub file) back when I try to drag it over to the koboereader on my desktop. It won't let me drop it in. Please help. I am so close to be able to read on my kobo!!!
Thanks,
Margo
I really wish I could provide some insight on this (As a rule I don't touch Macs). Perhaps there is a menu option for 'Sync to Device' or something similar.
Just double click on library file download....in macs it automatically takes it into adobe digital editions :)
When downloading files from my state library, it defaults to go to the Sony eReader software and it's like the address is "hard written" on the prompt. There's no way to change it there. I have purchased a Kobo and now would like to download books to it and evidently I will have to do that via Adobe Digital Editions. I have that installed and it has been for over a year. Although I was told I needed it when I bought the Sony, all books, no matter where I purchased or borrowed from downloaded directly to the Sony software. Does anyone know how to change that destination location when downloading a book? Thanks for your help
I would try un-authorizing your Sony Reader in ADE so that it only has the Kobo as the only device visible. Outside of that a complete reinstall of ADE might be the solution.
Thank you for your help :)
There were no instructions on my library website for e-readers, everything else but. :P
Thanks, Tim! Googled this and got to your site!
The clearest instructions I have found online! Thanks
Thank you;
I bought a KOBO today primarily to read library ebooks not to purchase stuff.
Unfortunately I only came across your instructions about two hours after I had spent almost five hours figuring out all of the steps by trial and error.... lots of error... lol
At least your step by step assured me that I hadn't missed any steps in the long run.
Thank you for going to the effort for us.
I don't know how to thank you. This is the first time I found a detailed (and correct) answer to my question. Finally, finally the frustration is over. I was really starting to think that I must be really dumb. You're as life saver :)
Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much. The frustration is over, and I refrained from chucking my laptop and Kobo off the deck.
Enough said.
Oh my gosh thanks so much. I was going insane trying to figure out how to do this till I found this site. No where I read said to plug in the ereader before installing the program. Thanks so much really
When I did the drag it worked at the beggining. Then I found the book in my Kobo, but it took forever to loading... I waited, and waited, and waited... nothing came up. I had to deleted it. Then I tried with a different book and still nothing. It's confusing and frustrating.
Any suggestions ?
Hmmm, sounds like there might be something wrong with the reader itself. You might want to reset it by pressing down the reset button with a paperclip and restarting the machine. Careful though it will delete all the content already on the Kobo...
Hi Tim I just bought a kobo touch and I was just wondering if the same process works on the kobo touch?
Yup it sure does work with the touch. Since writing this I've updated to the Touch and had no problems with getting content on it.
Thanks for taking the time to share this. It is rather cumbersome, especially the first run through.
hey, wish i would have found your directions before i tried it myself. I did figure it out but it took me 45 minutes. lol. are you running into problems with the size of the font? I've noticed when downloading from the library through the adobe program that it will not let me increase the font size.. and the font is probably a 6. teeny tiny print. makes me nuts. anyone know a way to fix this or am i just lucky that I could get it downloaded. lol
Yup. I've come across that quite often actually. No matter what font size you pick on the Kobo it always looks tiny. Not very useful. The only success I've had with fixing it is to bring the book to Calibre and have that convert it to a different font size. The bad news is that Calibre will only work with books that have no DRM on them. Which isn't that handy if you get a lot of books from Kobo directly.
Calibre now has a plugin that removes DRM
Wow, I always though that Calibre didn't touch anything that had DRM on it. I'm going to have to look into this.
If you right click on the ebook file (book.epub) then rename the file (book.zip), you can then double click and open the zip file. In the OEBPS folder delete any.css files and the page-template.xpgt file (if there is one). Change the file name back to book.epub and disconnect your Kobo. This will cure the size problem.
This is also a fix for those pages with impossibly large margins
This is a great tip, thanks. So many times I've to use calibre to accomplish the same thing but it never works as expected. This will save a lot of headaches in the future.
so what should I do if I didn't have the Kobo plugged in before downloading the ADE? Reinstall? I went and picked up a book last night just to make me feel better.
Yeah, reinstall seems to be the best bet. You probably should uninstall ADE and then run CCleaner to get rid of any registry entries so when you reinstall there is not left overs. From what i've experienced there is not way to force a resync with a device.
This was very helpful! Thank you
Thank you for this! So much is right about this:
- info is great. This process is crazy confusing. I work in technology, consult companies on how to use the web, social media etc and EVERY TIME I want to get a book from overdrive to my Kobo I am stumped. WHY does it need to be this complicated. I shall bookmark your page. And use it every time. Maybe one day I will catch on.....
- also so RIGHT about the comment of why does the ebook system have to mirror regular book borrowing? Why can there be only 1 reader at a time? CRAZY.
Thanks for this.
Jennifer.
Great instructions - all worked just find - thanks for the hand-holding. All in, it took me about 15 minutes, including download time. Great help, and I'm enjoying my library 'book' already!
Thanks for the easy to follow steps. I have both a Kobo and a Pandigital Novel in the family. I found that these instructions can be used for either device. My complaint is that most ebooks on the library sites, as you point out, are usually not available when I'm looking for a quick download.
Hi Tim,
I just wanted to let you know that I have added a link to your instructions from our website. We are finding Overdrive better than Netlibrary. I found the audio books quite easy to download but you are correct in saying that there are obstacles to overcome in getting books onto ebook readers. Adding to the confusion is the problem that one reader is not necessarily like the rest. Thank you for clearing some of the confusion.
I was having a hard time with this, but your post made it perfectly clear! Thanks! Question — what happens to the eBook once the lending period expires?
Happy to help.
I honestly don't know what happens once you pass the expiration day. I've always finished and deleted the books before due date. I imagine though you can't open the book any longer and I'm sure you'll have to delete it from Adobe Digital Editions in your Library as well as the Kobo Reader.
I just posted it didn't work but I called Kobo. The customer service was very helpful. Results: If it is a PDF file, you have to go to settings and click on documents to access the file.
Hopefully this will be helpful to anyone else having this issue. Good luck! I love the Ebooks!
Thank you for your post, but it's still not working for me. I go through all the steps and when I unplug my Kobo, the book is not on my Kobo. It does show on ADE. Any suggestions?
Ok, I perhaps should of been more explicit in my instructions. PDF files can be loaded on the Kobo but my focus was epub books. I didn't mention that directly so my bad.
As for loading the book on the Kobo... it is a bit tricky. It took me a few tries before I got it correctly. Basically you need to click on the book in the ADE interface, hold the button down, and then drag the book cover to the Kobo line on left side of the screen. Essentially you need to drag and drop the book onto the Kobo icon. You'll see a progress bar as the file is copied. Eject the Kobo and it should be on there.
I did exactly as your instructions said, and I am dealing with a .epub file. I can see the book on my Kobo in ADE (viewing on the computer), but then when I unplug the Kobo, and try to find it the book is no where to be found.
If for sure the book has been transfered to the Kobo via ADE you probably are just looking for it under the wrong heading. Be sure to list 'Books' and then find the book you want. If you reboot the Kobo more then once after a book has been added that book will disappear from your 'I'm Reading' list if you didn't open it up to read it. Also you might need to page over if you have more then 6 books on your ' I'm Reading' list.
Excellent instructions but my book showed up only in Documents. I did the process twice and then fluked on that
Hello, I'm having the same problem as the fellow before. My kobo ereader shows in ADE, I dropped and dragged ebooks to ereader. It accepted them and is listed on my ereader in ADE but when I unhook my ereader the books are not on my ereader. When I list books I do not have a documents file anywhere.
Please help... I'm so frustrated.
You might have to reset both the Kobo and reinstall ADE. After you uninstall ADE you might need to run CCLEANER to get rid of any Windows Registry items still lingering since ADE doesn't fully remove itself. Then on the KOBO you'll need to press down the reset button (with a paperclip most likely) for something like 20 seconds to get it to reset. Try connecting the Kobo again and running through the process. Who knows perhaps that will fix it.