Overdrive and Penguin have announced residents of the US or Canada can now checkout eBooks from the library and have them sent directly to a Kindle, without the need of a USB. This move simplifies the entire process and makes Amazon owners not have to jump through a bunch of hoops to borrow and read books.
Last September Overdrive came to terms with Penguin to offer over 17,000 eBooks to be made available to libraries in the United States. The service was then rolled out into Canada in December and now there are close to 15,000 titles from Penguin can be ordered by public and college libraries.
Amazon currently controls over 75% of the e-reader market in the USA and Canada. The lifting of restrictions by Overdrive and Penguin makes sense from a device per capita point of view.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.