Synopsis:  Pottermore – the Harry Potter website – opened its doors properly a couple of days ago, and now libraries and schools can also supply you with your favourite Harry Potter Story – for free.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the Harry Potter website – Pottermore – has finally stopped being in test phase, and is now open and fully functional, so obviously you can now go there and buy any of the Harry Potter ebooks you have not already downloaded for free from one or other of the many pirate websites who have had ebook versions of the whole set for ages.

Concurrently with this opening of the Pottermore site, the agreement they have with Overdrive has now also swung into action, and all the Harry Potter ebooks can now be borrowed from any library that lends ebooks, which includes loads of school libraries around the world.

Borrow and save money.

This is great news if you happen to be a fan of these books, as they are not cheap, ranging from $8 to $10 each, and given that I imagine all serious Hogwarts fans already have the paper versions of these books, it makes for a pretty large outlay if you want to buy all 7 of these books in ebook form.   So, simply nip along – electronically obviously – to your local library to see if you can quickly add your name to the no doubt extremely long waiting list of people who got there before you did, and then settle back to wait patiently for your turn to borrow your favourite Rowling’s book.

Loads of libraries will have these ebooks.

Apparently some 18000 libraries in about 20 countries are signed up with this scheme, and whilst the Potter ebooks are currently only available in English, very shortly versions in French, Italian, German and Spanish will become available.   What about the rest of the world?   No Mandarin, Malay, Hausa or Maori versions?   Seems unreasonably Eurocentric to me.

How do you borrow these ebooks?

It is pretty simple, but what I suggest you do is to contact your local library and ask them if they lend ebooks, and if so, how do you go about it?   If they say they do not lend ebooks, then ask them where the nearest library is that does lend them, then talk to that library.

What do you need to borrow ebooks?

Well, this is the same whether you want to borrow the Harry Potter ebooks or The Profound Thoughts Of Xing Goa On The Life Of Mollusks (A truly gripping tale of undersea romance and treachery), and is as follows:-

• A valid library membership card (duh!)

And one or more of the following:

• An ereader that supports Adobe DRM and ePub
• A tablet or smartphone that has OverDrive Media Console app installed on it
• A computer with Adobe Digital Editions on it
• A computer with any of the major ebook seller’s ebook Apps installed

So, now you know.

Conclusion:

Thus, provided you are prepared for what will probably be a long wait until your turn comes along, this is a boon for those who want to read the whole series of Harry Potter books, but don’t really want to spend about $60 to buy them.

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