Non-Resident Library Cards

[Paperbackstash]

After much looking, I found out Delray Beach allows free digital cards to all Florida residents. A smaller library but they do have Overdrive and Hoopla, so if you are in Florida, here is the link - https://www.delraylibrary.org/library-card/

I just chose home library as Delray Beach on the virtual card app, and entered my information of where I live, and immediately got a library card number and made a pin, used to enter into Overdrive and Hoopla. It's too pricey and small for non-residents (60 a year) for me to recommend, but great if in Florida as another resource since it's free.

[Fbone]

Eugene Oregon also uses Library2go. Their fee is $132/yr. Must call to enroll.

https://www.eugene-or.gov/1335/Non-resident-card

[Paperbackstash]

It looks like Hawaii has Overdrive of 54,000 e-books and over 14,000 audiobooks

They have a non-resident card for 25.00 and it lasts five years, which is cheap for $5.00 a year, BUT it looks like it's one you have to show in person at a branch (yech)

https://www.librarieshawaii.org/how-...-library-card/
https://hawaii.overdrive.com/

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

It looks like Hawaii has Overdrive of 54,000 e-books and over 14,000 audiobooks

They have a non-resident card for 25.00 and it lasts five years, which is cheap for $5.00 a year,

After looking over the fee schedule, my guess is that the non-resident card for $25.00 renews for four more years at $25.00/year. Which is still a deal; basically what they’re saying is that once you’ve got one, you don’t have to jump through the hoops again for five years.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by issybird

After looking over the fee schedule, my guess is that the non-resident card for $25.00 renews for four more years at $25.00/year. Which is still a deal; basically what they’re saying is that once you’ve got one, you don’t have to jump through the hoops again for five years.

You are probably right that it's 25 per year - but as you said, still cheap considering the collection. Unfortunately I'm never in Hawaii!

[JBaby]

Originally Posted by Manabi

I think to some extent they don't care, because libraries want more people reading and it's going to be a fairly small number of people who will cheat to get access. Tennessee's R.E.A.D.S. doesn't do much checking either. My library doesn't have any kind of Internet presence, and R.E.A.D.S. doesn't even check to see if your name matches the card number. It's basically an honor system.

Personally, while I wouldn't do it, I don't mind it too much because I think it's great people want to read more books that badly. I suspect most of the ones that do cheat can't afford to buy a lot of books themselves, or they wouldn't do this.

I don’t mind either for the most part. For me the issue is people doing this who can afford to buy patronage at a library that allows out of state patrons but don’t. I have no issue with the poor doing it. I grew up as a poor disabled kid with a single mom. This would’ve been perfect for me back then. Now I am a disabled adult who is middle class, but still one crisis away from being poor again, and I’ve gladly paid into two out of state libraries.

I also don’t have a problem with people using cards from friends/family who live in states but they themselves aren’t readers. Some might say it’s unethical, but I disagree since those libraries are still being funded by those friend’s/family’s taxes.

[haertig]

COLORADO RESIDENTS
-----

It was probably meant for this thread to be national, or even international, but taking things down to the state level ...

If you live in COLORADO, the following libraries will issue you their library card for free:

Denver Library
Arapahoe County Library
Jefferson County Library
Anythink Library (a.k.a. Rangeview Library)
High Plains Library
Front Range Library
Across Colorado Library
Douglas County Library
Poudre River Library

There may well be more, and probably are, but these are the ones I know of (because I am a member of all of them). The general practice is you can sign up online and get a temporary member number good for a few months. You can check out eBooks with this temporary member number. Eventually you need to physically go to one of each library's branches with an Colorado ID to get a permanent card. From then on you can check out all the eBooks you want. I've never had any of these libraries age-out and cancel my account, and I've been using them for many years.

The above are all Denver metro area libraries. Except for Poudre, which is up in Ft. Collins (a little over an hours drive away). The Across Colorado library is the farthest from me, and I called them and asked if they would mail me a permanent member card instead, based on my word that I was indeed a Colorado resident. They happily did. I guess giving them a home address in Colorado to mail the card to was enough proof that I lived in Colorado. I did not ask any of the other libraries to do this - I just made a road trip all over the Denver metro area one day and hit all the libraries one after the other. I carried a copy of my water bill, which shows my name and address, because many websites said that would be required as additional proof of residency. However, not a single library asked for it. My drivers license was all they wanted to see.

I never made it to the Denver library as required (rush hour traffic during my little road trip nuked that planned stop). So I expected that card to stop working. But it's still working just fine, on the temporary membership number, for something like 8 years now. I may eventually stop by one of their branch libraries and get a real card, but there doesn't appear to be any hurry to do so.

Colorado Springs will also issue you a card. Kind of. Their website was not clear, so I called them. They said they don't issue cards to residents outside of Colorado Springs. But I tried on their website anyway. It let me put in my address (which is not in Colorado Springs) and it gave me a temporary card for a few months. Hmmm. Maybe their programming needs to be revamped a little. So I used their temporary card for the few months until it went belly up. But I never attempted a trip down to Colorado Springs to get a real card, because that probably would have been futile. Colorado Springs did have some eBook titles in their library that no other library had (so does Poudre), so I was a little sad to lose Colorado Springs. But I was getting a little greedy by pursuing them in the first place. But if you really want a particular eBook, and they have it, why not try applying for their temporary card on their website using your New Jersey address? Doesn't hurt to try, and my experience was that their website programmer may not have been the sharpest in determining non-Colorado Springs addresses.

IIRC, some of these libraries would even issue limited membership cards to out of state folks, but that was only for physical book checkouts. No eBooks. I assume in case you were vacationing here and wanted some books to check out (and return) while in the state. This provided no benefit to me so I didn't investigate further other than simply noting the blurb on the library website.

[haertig]

Tip #1 on extending a library loan: After downloading the loaned eBook, put your Kindle in airplane mode. With no internet connection, the book will remain available for you to read until you exit airplane mode and the internet connection allows the eBook to be auto-returned. I assume the book shows as returned on the Overdrive website on its due date even if you're in airplane mode, but I did not attempt to verify this. I don't use this trick too often, but if I'm close to finishing a book but I know I can't check it out again due to a waiting list, switching to airplane mode does the trick and gives me a few more days to finish. I have not used this trick for a while now, so I cannot say if they have patched this leak or not. It may or may not still work.

[haertig]

Tip #2 on extending an audiobook loan (MP3 format audiobooks via Overdrive): Once you have downloaded the individual MP3 files for the audiobook onto your tablet/phone, simply move (or copy) those files to a different directory on your tablet/phone and have your audiobook app pick them up from the new directory. Come the audiobook due date, Overdrive will attempt to remove the files that are now non-existent in their original directory, but that doesn't do any good. You can keep listening to them from their new directory home. MP3 files do not support DRM, so there is no way to "deactivate" the files on your device. The way loans are closed out is to simply remove the files ... if they can find them.

You will need something called a "File Manager" app to do the file moving. And you will have to know where the files are initially stored by Overdrive. On my Android device, that original location is:
/Android/data/com.overdrive.mobile.android.mediaconsole/files/OverDrive/<name_of_book>

On first use, you will need to grant the File Manager app permission to read/write the original directory. All the File Manager apps I have used prompt you to do this, but sometimes it's a bit confusing understanding exactly what they want you to do to grant this permission.

I don't know if the Apple iOS devices give you low level file manager access to do this file moving. I suspect that they don't. Apple is pretty tight when it comes to giving users any kind of view into their low level operating system stuff. I'm not sure that Apple even lets you know what a "file" or a "directory structure" (a.k.a. "folder") is in the first place. They've got them for sure, they just don't want you to see them.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by haertig

COLORADO RESIDENTS
-----

It was probably meant for this thread to be national, or even international, but taking things down to the state level ...

If you live in COLORADO, the following libraries will issue you their library card for free:

The main purpose of this thread is to list libraries that allow all non-residents to join, not sub-sets at the county or state level.

Feel free to discuss them here, but I won't list them in the two lists on the front page.

[tubemonkey]

Y'all have added quite a few libraries. I'll slowly get them added to the front page, so bear with me.

[Fbone]

Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) of Little Rock, AR is $54 for non-resident card. Online application. https://cals.org/library-card-online-application

All epubs 72,293
Kindle 58,231
Audiobooks 23,969

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) of Little Rock, AR is $54 for non-resident card. Online application. https://cals.org/library-card-online-application

All epubs 72,293
Kindle 58,231
Audiobooks 23,969

Well, helllooooo, Arkansas!

Thanks for the info.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) of Little Rock, AR is $54 for non-resident card. Online application. https://cals.org/library-card-online-application

All epubs 72,293
Kindle 58,231
Audiobooks 23,969

Not a bad deal at all. I found a Libby link on it but not an Overdrive specifically (I know the apps are connected but is there a way to use an Overdrive page also if they only have a Libby listed I wonder? I find it confusing)

I was able to find two other counties in Florida yesterday that I could join free, but one of them uses only an ecloud version (shudder) for downloads and transfers, so I will only use that one if absolutely desperate for a hard to find expensive book not available anywhere else. Their downloads have that annoying Adobe Digital verification which I had issues with in past when dealing with Netgalley.

I am still undecided on which one to go with for out of state

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Not a bad deal at all. I found a Libby link on it but not an Overdrive specifically (I know the apps are connected but is there a way to use an Overdrive page also if they only have a Libby listed I wonder? I find it confusing)

I was able to find two other counties in Florida yesterday that I could join free, but one of them uses only an ecloud version (shudder) for downloads and transfers, so I will only use that one if absolutely desperate for a hard to find expensive book not available anywhere else. Their downloads have that annoying Adobe Digital verification which I had issues with in past when dealing with Netgalley.

I am still undecided on which one to go with for out of state

https://cals.overdrive.com (Central Arkansas Library System)