Amazon’s Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Now Offers Access to 475,000 eBooks

Today, in a roundup of 2013 accomplishments Amazon.com notes that the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) now offers access to more than 475,000 full text ebooks for U.S. customers.
One year ago KOLL provided access to approx. 250,000 ebook titles.
When KOLL launched in early November 2011 approx. 5,000 titles were available.
If you’re unaware of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library it allows Amazon Prime subscribers to borrow one book per month  to read on a Kindle device at no extra charge.
All ebooks are available at all times and their are no due dates.
An Amazon Prime subscription also provides access to (at no additional charge) thousands of movies and tv programs that can be streamed to television and mobile devices as well as two day shipping for many purchases.
This FAQ has additional details.
Btw, Prime Subscribers also get a price break on another Amazon monthly subscription service that targets parents/kids (ages 3-8) that launched about six months ago. It’s named FreeTime Unlimited.  This service offers parents/kids unlimited access to thousands of books, games, and videos.
As we’ve said many times we believe the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and all you can read (aka Netflix-like) services need to be discussed and planned for by the library community.
Discussion topics include:

• What do these services mean for local library collections and library users now and in the future?
• Budget issues? How are we spending money on ebooks for today and the future?
• How do you market library ebook services vs. Amazon and others?
• What do these services mean for public perception of library services?

We have more to say about these and other issues in this post.
One final point, we would not be at all surprised to see Amazon increase the number of books that can be borrowed during a one month period to more than one.

Filed under: Libraries, News, Patrons and Users