The BiblioTech Digital Library gained a ton of attention when it was first announced in January. Bexar County in San Antonio will be launching the first pure digital library in the United States in the fall. The library plans on outfitting a massive computer lab and intends to lend out 100 e-readers to the public. The big hyping point is that the organizers want to make the entire operation give you the look and feel as an Apple Store. In order to facilitate the digital content, they have formed a new partnership with the 3M Cloud Library Service.
3M will be bringing its titles from Penguin and many other top publishers when the BiblioTech Digital Library opens this fall. There was much speculation in the library industry on who exactly would land this contract. This new library will be super high-end and will be followed closely to see if an all digital library will work, that actually has a physical location.
Nelson Wolff is the man spearheading the initiative in Bexar County and told me that the entire project will cost $250,000 for the first 10,000 ebook titles. The intention behind this entire system is to allow people living in outlying areas to get access to books where they normally wouldn’t.
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.