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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A Private E-Book Lending Library

Posted by on Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 2:20 PM

Now that you can "loan" e-books from your Kindle or Nook, eBook Exchange is setting up a database allowing users to register and lend books to strangers:

List your ebooks for others.
eBook Exchange™ is the primary lending and borrowing marketplace for Kindle™ and Nook™ ebooks. Once you've read an ebook, put that purchase to work rather than letting it stagnate in your e-reader's archives.

Borrow today's best selling ebooks.
It's never been easier to discover new authors writing today's bestsellers. Start now by registering, for free.

I wonder if Amazon or B&N will try to put a stop to this? It probably helps eBook Exchange's odds of survival that the FAQ points out that all profits go to childhood literacy programs.

 

Comments (5) RSS

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JPR 1
If you can only lend once (in the lifetime of the purchased book), how can such a service be viable?
Posted by JPR on January 5, 2011 at 3:56 PM · Report this
2
Perhaps the more important announcement is that OverDrive (the company that handles electronic media for many public libraries) has included eBooks in their media console applications that they distribute for use on iPhone and Android. Meaning you can check-out an eBook from a public library over-the-air without having to enter in to the mildewy building. The current implementation isn't ideal (it's inside OverDrive's application and not native to the device's eBook reader) but it's a great step towards making digital lending/borrowing viable on a large scale.
Posted by jsteel2005 on January 5, 2011 at 4:25 PM · Report this
Free Lunch 3
The publisher can opt out of this feature for any given book. Given that this site clearly violates the intent of the sharing feature, I bet more and more publishers will deny sharing of their books.
Posted by Free Lunch on January 5, 2011 at 5:28 PM · Report this
ToddO 4
None of the (admittedly few) books I've bought from Kindle have loaning enabled yet, and I'm sure not going to pay $2 to "borrow" a book from someone (technically once borrowed the DRM can be ripped off like any other purchase, so it's really buying the book but the money doesn't go to the author in any way).

Better to steal your books honestly.
Posted by ToddO on January 5, 2011 at 9:23 PM · Report this
Booklends 5
Hi, We're actually setting up something similar over at http://www.booklends.com .. We plan to support Kindle and nook, and will make it easy to see what other users have available for lending. We'll be sending out the beta invites in a week or so, but you can sign up on our site now to be notified when the service is ready!
Posted by Booklends http://www.booklends.com on January 12, 2011 at 5:43 AM · Report this

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