Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Announces Agreement to Make Amazon Publishing Ebooks and Audiobooks Available to Libraries

Talk about a possible DPLA/Amazon Publishing deal to make ebooks available to libraries first surfaced at the end of 2020.

From DPLA:

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is pleased to announce that we have signed an agreement with Amazon Publishing to make all of the approximately 10,000 Amazon Publishing ebooks and audiobooks available to libraries and their patrons through the DPLA Exchange, the only not-for-profit, library-centered content marketplace. This marks the first time that ebooks from Amazon Publishing have been made available to libraries. Like our previous publisher arrangements, this agreement furthers our mission to expand equitable access to ebooks and audiobooks while protecting library patron privacy.

Amazon Publishing titles will begin to be available in the DPLA Exchange via four licensing models this summer; we expect that libraries will be able to access all of the Amazon Publishing titles by the end of the year:

• Unlimited, one user at a time access, two-year license
• Bundles of 40 lends, available with a maximum of 10 simultaneously, with no time limit to use the lends
• Bundles of five lends, available simultaneously, with no time limit to use the lends
• 26 lends, one user at a time access, the lesser of two years or 26 lends license

Library patrons will be able to access Amazon Publishing titles through SimplyE, the library-developed and managed e-reader app founded by New York Public Library. Amazon Publishing is now one of more than 1,000 publishers in the DPLA Exchange and one of more than two dozen with whom we are working to provide libraries greater choice and flexibility in ebook lending models. As with other publishers that we work with, Amazon will not receive any patron data.

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Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Public Libraries, Publishing