This is a rough draft of a guide I'm going to be fleshing out more thoroughly as time goes on. The layout will be tweaked.
You need:
1) A nook or nookcolor
2) A library card
3) A computer
4) Adobe Digital Editions installed on the computer
So you already have a nook, so step 1) is taken care of. You can go to your local public library and simply present a drivers license in most cases to receive a library card. Be sure to ask them whether the city/county your library is a part of offers a digital media catalog for book borrowing. Once you have the card, you can do the rest from your home computer.
Download Adobe Digital Editions and make an account:Adobe - Digital Editions
Navigate to your library's website and click on the digital media catalog (it might be a different name depending on your location). You will be able to shop around for books. Search or browse for what you want but make sure they books are in the ADOBE PDF format, which is what the nook is compatible with.
At some point the website will ask you for your library card number which you enter in. Once you 'check out', your computer's browser downloads an extremely small file (like 5 KB). Clicking on this tells Adobe Digital Editions to open and then download the book.
the point of Adobe Digital Editions is that this program puts the protection on the downloaded book so you only have it 7 to 14 days, so you cant keep it forever or email it to all your friends...you are 'borrowing' it.
Once the book is downloaded and you see it in Adobe Digital Editions, plug your nook into your computer. It is set to automatically go into USB mode. USB mode essentially makes it look like a flash drive to your computer for easy copy/pasting of files back and forth between them.
Once you've plugged it in, it will likely ask you to authorize the device. Depending on which software version of nookcolor you are updated to, it might show up as either 'media' or 'MyNookColor'. Agree to authorize it.
While in 'Library View' in Adobe Digital Editions, drag and drop the borrowed book onto your nook.
Open 'My Computer' and right click on the drive nook represents and eject it.
On your nook, open 'Library', tap the 'My Files' tab and select 'Digital Editions' to show your borrowed book. Tap the folder the book is uniquely named in and you have your lending period of time to read it.
This sounds like a lot of headache and steps, but once you've downloaded the program and set everything up, you can go from borrowing a book off the website to reading it on your Nook in under a minute. Trust me.
********************************
to do:
clean up formatting
screenshots
add addendum for how to borrow audiobooks using overdrive
You need:
1) A nook or nookcolor
2) A library card
3) A computer
4) Adobe Digital Editions installed on the computer
So you already have a nook, so step 1) is taken care of. You can go to your local public library and simply present a drivers license in most cases to receive a library card. Be sure to ask them whether the city/county your library is a part of offers a digital media catalog for book borrowing. Once you have the card, you can do the rest from your home computer.
Download Adobe Digital Editions and make an account:Adobe - Digital Editions
Navigate to your library's website and click on the digital media catalog (it might be a different name depending on your location). You will be able to shop around for books. Search or browse for what you want but make sure they books are in the ADOBE PDF format, which is what the nook is compatible with.
At some point the website will ask you for your library card number which you enter in. Once you 'check out', your computer's browser downloads an extremely small file (like 5 KB). Clicking on this tells Adobe Digital Editions to open and then download the book.
the point of Adobe Digital Editions is that this program puts the protection on the downloaded book so you only have it 7 to 14 days, so you cant keep it forever or email it to all your friends...you are 'borrowing' it.
Once the book is downloaded and you see it in Adobe Digital Editions, plug your nook into your computer. It is set to automatically go into USB mode. USB mode essentially makes it look like a flash drive to your computer for easy copy/pasting of files back and forth between them.
Once you've plugged it in, it will likely ask you to authorize the device. Depending on which software version of nookcolor you are updated to, it might show up as either 'media' or 'MyNookColor'. Agree to authorize it.
While in 'Library View' in Adobe Digital Editions, drag and drop the borrowed book onto your nook.
Open 'My Computer' and right click on the drive nook represents and eject it.
On your nook, open 'Library', tap the 'My Files' tab and select 'Digital Editions' to show your borrowed book. Tap the folder the book is uniquely named in and you have your lending period of time to read it.
This sounds like a lot of headache and steps, but once you've downloaded the program and set everything up, you can go from borrowing a book off the website to reading it on your Nook in under a minute. Trust me.
********************************
to do:
clean up formatting
screenshots
add addendum for how to borrow audiobooks using overdrive