The essence of this new service is providing a digital content distribution system for libraries and hardware to facilitate the lending process. The company installs touchscreen Discovery Terminals in the libraries it does business with. You can then interact with the entire library database of books and check them out to your Android or iOS device. 3M is also providing dedicated e-readers to be loaned out in addition to the books. Normally you can borrow ten books at a time and put a hold on ten additional books.
3M has secured many of the industries top publishers to launch their service and this means close to 100,000 books will be available. Random House, Harper Collins, Harlequin, Baker, Wiley, Kensington and Sourcebooks will be offering their digital collections for loan.
Many libraries will love this solution because customers mostly do everything themselves. Overdrive warrants trained staff that know how to handle the content loading on your device and troubleshooting common problems. The 3M Discovery Terminal is bright and easy to use. With a simple touchscreen interface you create your account and use it to borrow books. Once the book is borrowed it is sent to any of your devices. If you borrow an e-reader from the library all content you borrow will be synced.
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.
