Thinking about a Kindle? Think again.

I hope I'm not too late in telling you this: Think twice before buying a Kindle for Christmas.

I was just thinking about getting an ebook reader as a Christmas present for my mom. Maybe a Kindle? I realized that would be a bad choice. Mom borrows books from the Brownsburg Public Library. You can't use a Kindle to read an ebook from that library. In general, you cannot use a Kindle to read an ebook borrowed from any library, including our favorite library.

Ebook and audiobook downloads offered by Hussey-Mayfield come from a company called OverDrive. OverDrive and Amazon (the source of the Kindle) haven't agreed on terms that would permit OverDrive to offer Kindle-compatible ebooks.

Fortunately, there are many e-reader devices -- including the iPad, iPhone and Android devices -- that you can use to read ebooks from libraries.

Or save your money and keep life simple by reading your ebooks on your PC. I use my 4-year-old IBM Lenovo laptop to read ebooks from Hussey-Mayfield AND ebooks from Amazon. Kindle-formatted ebooks from amazon.com will work on almost any PC. You just need the free Kindle for PC software, which you download from amazon.com. To read Hussey-Mayfield ebooks on your PC, you just need free software from OverDrive. I use them both.

Have a merry Christmas and a New Year full of happy e-reading!