If the iPad “owns” the tablet category, Amazon’s Kindle device arguably controls the e-reader sector. In a move that may both aid the Kindle brand as well as e-reading in general, the Seattle-based online bookseller Wednesday announced an agreement with 11,000 U.S. libraries. The lending library service permits owners of either the Kindle device or a Kindle e-reader application to also access their notes, highlights and bookmarks.
“Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no,” Amazon announced. However, if you check the book out again, or purchase the title, all annotations are preserved. Your notes won’t be available to other library patrons who check out the library e-book, though.
Amazon will offer the service “later this year.” Also, no list of participating libraries is available.
In March, Amazon reportedly shut down a service that permitted Kindle owners to exchange books. The service, Lendle, was shuttered after the Kindle-maker withdrew the service’s API.
[Amazon Press Release, 9to5Mac]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
10 responses to “Amazon Unveils Kindle Lending Library Service”
Lendle is back up and running.
what does this have to do with Apple? will it work the the iOS Kindle app?
“The lending library service permits owners of either the Kindle device or a Kindle e-reader application”
So, yes. Or Kindle on a PC, Mac, or anything else that’ll run it.
cool. i guess i got confused by the term application, haha
My local public library uses Adobe Digital Editions to do eBook “loaning.” Now, I am not one to make fun of Adobe, especially since they have some really excellent people and some outstanding software.
Let’s just say that Adobe Digital Editions was developed by the telephone sanitizers on the “B Ark.” The scroll bars are a 99% black square in a 100% black rectangle, and don’t work like any other scroll bars on my computer. Even the type looks bad — I believe it’s incorrectly anti-aliased. The only “good” thing I could find about the program is that it can download and read books — but I did find some bugs in that most basic functionality, causing it to tell me that I have books to download every time I launch it — then it fails with an error number code. No way to fix this other than wiping it clean, I suspect.
In conclusion, Hurrah for Amazon.