It sounds sort of obvious, but public libraries have stepped forward now that e-books have become mainstream and are offering bookworms the chance to borrow books from them.
I came across the obvious-when-you-think-about-it concept when writing a review of the Sony Reader Pocket Edition e-book reader. It’s a solid e-book reader and was my top pick of devices being reasonably priced, well-built and easy to use.
An outfit known as Overdrive appears to be behind the scheme, but essentially the scheme works by allowing you to borrow digital copies of the books at your local library. To do so, you must become a member - a neat way of getting you to mosey down there and have a look at what it has to offer. After a set period, the book you've borrowed must be returned, though there are no library fines, simply a revocation of reading rights once the loan has ended.
Of course, not all books in your local library will be available to borrow in digital form (though presumably you can politely request titles they stock are added to the digitising wait list). The beauty for many reading fans will be that you can broaden the range of books you can enjoy on your ebook reader or laptop (it's also possible to read books acquired this way on a Windows Mobile Phone and some other smartphones) without having to stump up a chunk more money.
It sounds like an excellent plan all round and I've already been down to my local library to see what's on offer.
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