This summer’s announcement of Amazon Unlimited caused quite the buzz in libraries and bookstores across the country. The service allows Kindle owners to sign up, for a $9.99 a month charge, to have instant access to more than 600,000 eBooks and audio books.

After the news, people came out on both sides of the fence concerning its possible future. Forbes’ contributing author Tim Worstall wrote an interesting piece wondering if we should Close the Libraries and buy everyone an Amazon Kindle Unlimited Subscription. Needless to say, this raised a lot of objection from libraries and librarians. Barbara Fister, an academic librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, wrote a wonderfully worded counter-point saying among other things, that compared to Amazon Unlimited, “A library card has a lot more going for it.”

Maybe this the best argument against Amazon Unlimited? We know that libraries offer more than just eBooks or audiobooks, but telling the world this fact is also our responsibility. Perhaps Bloomberg’s steps sum up best how easy eBooks can be:

Step 1: Get thee a library card.
Step 2: Log on.
Step 3: Check out.

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/kg6dvqa, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0