Here's another example.

I digitally transfer $1000 from my savings account to my checking account. I go online and spend $10,000 because that $1000 is just digital... it can certainly be copied very easily and I just spent the digital copy 10 times. Why is that a problem? This is the digital releam... it should be easy just to copy the money and send it to the 10 vendors... no?

Also, for some reason $1000 was deducted from my savings account. Does that make sense... I just wanted to copy $1000 of the digital money in my savings account to my checking... I didn't want to delete the $1000 digital from my savings. This is just NOT right.

BOb
If you live in New York or pay New York property taxes you can apply for a NYC Public Library card and have access to hundreds of the latest fiction in Adobe PDF format as well as Mobipocket. If you are not a NY resident you can still apply and obtain a card for the low, low fee of $100 per year. I am seriously considering it.
It took about two weeks for my NYPL card to arrive (I live in Louisville, KY). I downloaded my first book and am thrilled with the number of ebook offerings in the library. $100/year is a tremendous bargain!
Well, I've checked the NY library - Cleveland has a much more extensive collection (I think e-books only are around 8,800 volumes, audiobooks are separate and I'm guessing around 4,000). Getting a card is restricted to permanent Ohio residents or people in Ohio for 6 weeks or longer - http://www.cpl.org/index.php?q=node/34.

Maybe some out of state folks can e-mail to them suggesting something like NY - fee based for out of state (which should make sense, they shouldn't care if they are funded by property taxes or other fees).
Nice heads-up. There's a NYPL on my block--got my (free) library card on the spot!

For getting "borrowed" books onto the Reader, here are the steps:

# Download the Adobe DE software (there's a link on the Sony Reader upgrade page) and install
# Start the DE software and register with Adobe DE (e-mail address, some other info, and a password) [Note: The DE app is like another version of the Sony Library]
# Connect the Reader to your pc via USB. A dialog box will open asking if you want to register the Reader with Adobe DE. Do it.
# Visit a library that offers Adobe DE books (like NYPL.org) and check out an available book. (You usually need a library account/card for this.) There will be an option to save the file or open with Adobe DE. Choose to open with DE. The book will appear on the DE bookshelf screen.
# Drag the book onto the Reader folder on the left (just like in Sony Library).

That's it! As someone above mentioned, a little clock will be on the right of the listing in the Reader menu, indicating how many days are left.

Just from a quick browse, I discovered that there is a new 'Foundation Trilogy' authored by three different writers (Greg Bear and a couple of others). I'm gonna check this out as soon as I finish up my current reading!
The libraries actually purchase a yearly subscription service from Overdrive. They prepay based on the number of books/copies they allow on checkout. I think that is why there are many different rules based on the size of the library budget. i.e. 5 items-2 weeks (Newport Beach abt 100 titles) versus 100 items-3 weeks, (NY more than 15,000 titles) and 20 items - 3 week (Seattle 4,000 titles).

In any case, it's a wonderful service.
I thought I might as well show a link to the ebook collection of the NY Public Library:

http://ebooks.nypl.org/

Enjoy!
As usual I was clear as mud - I was talking about pbooks when I was talking about rental of popular fiction.
My library in East Tennessee is Tennessee wide for e books and has several thousand books available to check out including 192 fantasy titles (which are my favorite). They allow 15 titles to be checked out at a time for 14 days. One can also place a hold and when an ebook becomes available they e-mail me. It is very handy. I suppose that anyone who checks out that many books would have to be an awfully fast reader. Ha. I've had been checking out and reading titles for a long time on my computer before the Sony Reader was bought but it hurt my eyes.

My transfer to the PRS 505 was also very painless and greatly enlarged my horizons. I have been checking out the NYC public library and if I remember correctly they had around 12,000 some odd books available? It does seem like a huge bargain for only $100. How many books do they check out and can they hold books for the next reader?

I've come to the conclusion that the supply of ebooks is mainly because of the publishers holding them back and using the ones they release as primarily teasers unless it is an "old" book or early writer like Andre Norton or C. J. Cherryh both of whom I enjoy greatly.
I went to the NYC public library and tried to see what was available for Robin Hobb one of the more popular fantasy writer and it showed 4 ebooks available. I then went to the Tennessee ebook system and it showed 6 books available. Now I know that Tennessee could not possiblly compete with the NYC public library so it seems that all ebooks are not available there as I would have thought? Confusing? Maybe they have a budget like the rest of us!