By Nancy Blair, USA TODAY
The world of Kindle reading soon will get bigger: Amazon today said that later this year it will launch library lending for Kindle books, from over 11,000 libraries in the U.S.
The Kindle Library Lending feature will be available for all Kindles and Kindle apps, Amazon said. The company did not give a more specific time frame for launch of the service.
You'll be able to check out a Kindle book from a local library and start reading on any Kindle device or Kindle app. If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, annotations and bookmarks will be preserved, Amazon said in a news release.
Kindle has free reading apps for a range of devices including Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and Windows Phone.
"We're doing a little something extra here," Jay Marine, Amazon's Kindle director, said in a statement. "Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we're extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check out from your local library.
Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there as you left them.
Amazon said it is working digital book distributor OverDrive on the service. OverDrive offers DRM protection and download services for publishers, libraries, schools, and retailers.
