Amazon has apparently created new rules governing the use of its Kindle ereader in school libraries. The website of the ecommerce giant states that content cannot be loaded across multiple devices at one time, and an Amazon rep told at least one school librarian, Buffy Hamilton, that ebooks cannot be ported to more than one device. Amazon also requires that each Kindle be tethered to its own account. If permanent, the new rules could hamper the use of Kindles in school libraries, where ebooks, up until now, have typically been shared among up to six devices, and having to manage content on each single device would be impractical. Although Amazon would not confirm the new rules despite several emails and phone calls from School Library Journal, a "School FAQ" on Amazon's site reads: "At present, it is not possible to load content across multiple independent devices at one time; this must be done on each device separately." In addition, Amazon wants Kindles used by schools to be registered separately. "If you would like students to be able to have their own notes and bookmarks, you will need to register a maximum of one Kindle per Amazon account," reads the document. For libraries with multiple Kindles in circulation, this is a serious time management concern, says Hamilton, a librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, GA. Amazon sent her a draft of the new rules this week and requested that she change her own guidelines accordingly. In her July 27 blog post "Why We Won't Purchase More Kindles at the Unquiet Library," Hamilton quotes from a message an Amazon representative had emailed to her July 21: "We discovered the FAQ on your Facebook post and wanted you to either update the information to be in line with Amazon's End User License Agreement with the attached setup information. Or to remove the information on registering 6 devices per account to share digital content." In her post, Hamilton reports that Amazon was responding to a concerned publisher, who had seen Hamilton's LibGuides Kindle page. "There are two things that concern me," says Hamilton. "One is that Amazon doesn't seem to have a real understanding of a school or library environment, which are different from an individual consumer. And in failing to understand those needs at least at this time they're not offering any practical alternatives to manage that content to be in compliance with the user agreement at this time." Hamilton also says she was told by the rep that ebooks and Kindles would be "1:1," which she understood to mean that ebooks could not be shared across multiple devices. Until now, many libraries had followed the rules spelled out for most consumers on Amazon's own support page: that an ebook could be shared on up to six Kindles. Hamilton had mentioned this in her own guidelines, and other educators have been operating under the same principle.

Buffy Hamilton
Photo by the Unquiet Library

Librarians have also registered multiple Kindles under a single account, making them easier to manage. But the new rules contradict what librarians say they've been told as recently as this month. And some now feel they were misled into purchasing the devices for schools in the first place. "We entered into a conversation with Amazon about using Kindles in the classroom in May of 2011," says one comment from "Kate" on Hamilton's post reproduced at EduKindle. "At that time, we were assured of the 6 device/1 ebook rule. The last week of June we were registering Kindles and did call Amazon education with a few questions.... not once were we informed of this "new" rule. If this is the case, we will attempt to return all Kindles." While Hamilton has just 10 Kindles, some school librarians have purchased dozens, even hundreds, in the past few years. Managing each Kindle separately would require a large output of time and expense. Even though Amazon has announced it will be creating a link with digital content distributor OverDrive in the coming months to specifically help with managing digital library collections on the Kindle, OverDrive is an additional cost that many libraries cannot afford, says Hamilton. The lack of clarity is causing a stir among librarians. More than 30 readers had commented on Hamilton's blog post by July 29, and several stated they would not purchase Kindles if the policy stands. Hamilton had already decided to commit instead to the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Reader and will purchase between 130 and 200 Nook devices this year. Barnes & Noble also states that Nook readers can't share titles, but has promised a remote managing tool, so educators wouldn't have to manually update each device individually. "Barnes & Noble is also going to be one to one," says Hamilton. "But the difference is we're going to have back-end tools to help manage seamlessly."