The Kindle just got a library card! Last week, Amazon announced that thousands of library books are now available for free lending onto the Kindle. I spent some time tonight browsing through the books, and I’m so excited about this! My Kindle is over 3 years old (it’s the original), but I think it’s going to be used more than ever now.
Here’s how to get library books for your Kindle (you may also find this helpful for other ereaders or for reading on your computer):
1. Visit OverDrive, the service that is working with Amazon to house the Kindle library books. There, you may search libraries to find if yours is a participating one, and you may search through the available books.
2. Or, you may visit your local library’s website. My library is in a small town, and has a confusing webpage, so it was a bit difficult to find the link to OverDrive on it. It was easier to use the option above.
3. When you’re at the website location where your library keeps its epubs, you’ll be able to browse the catalog to find books. See my screenshot below:
4. At this point, you choose “add to cart,” but you won’t pay a penny. Instead, you’ll just check out with your library card number. You may also see that the epub is available as an Adobe ePub eBook, which may be read on your computer or other devices. And you may also see that you can borrow it as an audiofile, for your iPod or other mp3 device.
The Kindle, obviously, is not the freebie here. Today, the new Kindle was released and is just $79! (I paid $349 three years ago!). With it, you have access to free classics, which you may also read from your computer, but the Kindle is a bit more handy. Our son uses my Kindle weekly for his political science class. His teacher mails many .pdf documents each week, so we send them to the Kindle for easier reading.
How to Get Free Library Books onto the Kindle: Follow my directions above or learn more at Amazon’s library lending page, here.
BEST NEWS EVER!!! I got a Kindle for my birthday, having heard that the Kindle would be offering library books by September. I was just thinking TODAY that I guess it was just a rumor! Yay! It’s not! My library is on the list that works with Kindle! Thank you, thank you for the news! I love you guys!
It's so much fun to read your note, Jennifer. You're as excited as I am about this!
Excellent!! Thanks for all the tips!!
oh now this is exciting!!! guam has such a poor library system with spotty electricity, vhs tapes and only one branch that is still open. but we still have our address and library card back in texas… must. check. this. out!!! woohoo!