I agree with your idea logically, but at the same time I also have some gut-reaction misgivings. I’m all for promoting library resources, or resources that we can support, but not to the exclusion of everything else. That seems like too much of a business-oriented approach – pushing your products on the customer because that’s what you sell, not because it’s want the customer needs or wants.

I think this is because we can get books on the Kindle that we can’t get through Overdrive. I think you’re right on saying that circulating Kindles is promoting Amazon sales. But at the same time, I have a hard time depriving a patron of something they wanted to read – offering Kindles helps balance the shortcomings of the Overdrive catalog.

Since patrons can load library-purchased Overdrive collections into Nooks and Sony readers the answer to the above question is yes. In fact, you could use library-purchased Nooks and Sony readers to teach patrons to use your Overdrive collection.

At this time, libraries circulating Kindles are teaching patrons to use Kindles and buy ebooks from Amazon.com. This would be like Microsoft employees showing Microsoft customers how to use Linux computers. I can’t think of any good reason why librarians or Microsoft employees should do that.