Yep. THAT 3M.
Via Publisher’s Marketplace and Engadget.com:
“Yesterday, the company announced a new Cloud Library e-book lending service that will allow users to browse and borrow digital books directly from their iPads, Nooks and Android-based tablets.” (Press release at link.)
Random House and the Independent Publisher’s Group (IPG) are both on board to provide books.
Amazon is getting ready to start the Kindle Lending Library later this year, and Sony is partnering with Overdrive to allow you to search for and check out library books from a limited number of libraries.
I think this is a good thing; leaving Overdrive as the single library provider is probably not going to benefit patrons or publishers. And having ereader providers work with Overdrive is also a good thing–Overdrive is a pain to use, at present, with a number of hoops for readers to jump through before they can start reading.
But how difficult will it be to get into the 3M cloud? Is this another layer of distribution? From me to the IPG to 3M to the library? That’s still at least one too many jumps.