Why Does Everything eBook-Related Suck?

Thanks to shallow celebs such as Ashton Kutcher, Twitter has become just about worthless now.

So I signed off it today in moment of fury and decided to soothe my soul by going through the eBook listings at the New York Public Library.

Like every public library, the NYPL is a victim of that metastatic monopoly from OverDrive. Public libraries do not create their own websites and add eBooks they believe will suit their clientele. No. They have no other choice — thanks to DRM and the cowardice of the dying dinosaurs of print — than to lease a turnkey system from OverDrive which they gateway through their existing websites.

The OverDrive system is a blight upon the world of eBooks and especially upon the world of public libraries.

All of the search options a good library would offer in its own computerized card catalog (such as the NYPL’s own LEO system) aren’t present. There is no field to search on “Writer” or “Author,” for example. There is the corporate lawyer term “Creator” — something that must make lifelong and dedicated librarians want to pull out a gun.

The OverDrive system is just so entirely atrociously bad.

And today it reached its nadir.

I decided to browse through the eBook catalog in reverse chronological order, from newest acquisitions backward.

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Because OverDrive search is such an absolute collection of crap, this is really one of the best methods to actually find things — by bulk browsing. In a way similar to browsing a physical shelf — except worse and much slower.

With over 11,000 items, I planned to go through at least one thousand.

OverDrive had another idea:

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Suddenly I was presented with a page that had absolutely no relation to the search itself! Look at the upper right corner. It’s telling me this is an eHolds error.

What?!

I’m nowhere near the eHold part of the damned crappy site! I’m in the rotten catalog!

When the hell will the eBook world get its act together?

Fictionwise/eReader has servers that are seemingly powered by dying gerbils.

Sony has a site with its own problems.

Cool-er’s eBook store is an object lesson in breathtaking incompetency.

And now this cavalier approach has infected the national circulatory system of knowledge too — our public libraries!

President Obama should appoint an eBook Czar.

And that should be me.

I’d get it all straightened out.

Even if it meant taking a baseball bat to some overpaid heads!

Get your shit together, dammit.

There is no excuse for what I’m seeing and for what you’re subjecting the general public to.