Metro libraries writing a novel chapter in e-book lending | Star Tribune

"The Twin Cities metro library systems could soon become the first in the nation to share e-books, vastly expanding the number of titles available to library patrons. With e-book users complaining of long waits and limited selection from their local libraries, the change is a sign that e-book lenders are responding to the huge demand. 'Anything to have a wider selection would be great,' said Keeya Steel, 27 of Edina, an e-book user who guesses she has just a 50-50 chance of finding a book she’s looking for in the Hennepin County system.  Print books have gone back and forth across county lines on interlibrary loans for 50 years. But since 2010, when libraries started lending e-books, they have loaned them only to their own resident patrons.  But in the next few months, in time for the annual spike in e-book demand associated with e-reader holiday gifts, more than 100 metro libraries — those in the seven metro county library systems and the St. Paul Public Library — will share e-book titles via a 3M service called Cloud Link, an e-book lending service the company sells to libraries.  In an immediate boost for the new arrangement, expected to be approved on Thursday by the regional Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA), the agency plans to spend as much as $500,000 for a common pool of e-books stocked with 2,264 of 3M’s most popular titles — eight copies of each. And, if the new sharing works well, it may buy as many more in 2014 ..."