Free ebooks from your local library

My Dad first mentioned about borrowing ebooks from the library a while ago and after asking them what book readers they are compatible with they recommended the Kobo. So when we spotted the Kobo for only £29.99 at WH Smiths we had to get it for his birthday.

Our first problem was getting the free books from the Kobo store onto the Kobo. I don't really think much of the Kobo's search feature, you can look for books but I couldn't find a way of filtering them in price order and searching for 'free book', 'free ebook' or simply 'free' all came up with results none of which were free. What I decided to do was log on to the Kobo bookstore via my laptop and from there I could filter search results into price order. Next I copied the book title into the Kobo search and up popped the book I wanted.

Next we wanted to work out how to get the ebooks from the library. Unfortunately their 'Computer Buddy' wasn't experienced with the ebook system so we turned to Google! Well we couldn't find any guides on how to get the library books on the Kobo. We found how to get an app so you can read the books on your tablet or mobile, even on your computer but getting them onto the Kobo was difficult.  If you want to get the library books on anything other than a Kobo then look here - http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/ebook-readers/borrow-ebooks-from-your-local-library-without-even-going-there-50005724/
It tells you how to download Overdrive Media Console - I can't really comment on this programme as when I downloaded it I could only get it to look for audio books rather than ebooks! (I tried the windows version).

So back to the drawing board! I thought I'd look on Kent Library's home page as that is our local library (hopefully other areas librarys have a similar set up). In the middle of the home page is this section called 'Do it online':

From here I went to 'Download' (I will add that you will need to have signed up to the library online) and on the page that opens you will see this also kind of in the middle of the page:

I clicked on the link I have highlighted - 'Go to Overdrive ebooks' and from the page that opens you can sign in to your library account using the 'sign in' link at the top right hand of the page. If you don't know your login details your local library should be able to help you. Just to keep things simple here is a picture of the login page:

If you click 'Account' near the top you will see a page that looks like this:

From here you can click where it says 'Add a Title' and you can find a book you want.

You can choose ebooks or audio books - these have a different logo in the top right hand corner of the book picture:

If there is a book you would like but the book logo is grey rather that black (like the picture below) then it means the book is currently on loan and you can select to put a hold on it.

When you have found a book you want and selected 'Borrow' it will appear in your Account. From here you can choose 'Download (EPUB eBook)' or you can read it in your browser. We are dwnloading it to get it onto the Kobo.

Now this is where it got confusing.. it seems to download as a .acsm file rather than a .epub which is what I was expecting. the Kobo wouldn't read that file type so after another google I found out that in order to read the .acsm file you should download 'Adobe Digital Editions' - You can find it here:
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/digital-editions/download.html

I downloaded the windows version:

It was pretty easy to follow the steps to download and open. When I did I found the ebook I had downloaded in its library:

When linking the Kobo to my computer Adobe Digital Editions instantly recognised it and it has its own section on the left hand side (sorry no picture of this as I don't have the Kobo here with me!)

To get the book only the Kobo you just have to 'right click' on the book and then select 'copy to Kobo' and it will copy across.

Hopefully you will find this guide useful and will save you a bit of time searching the internet for help!