Thanks to a new Amazon service called Library Lending, you'll soon be able to skip the hassle of physically dragging books from and to your local library — by checking them out on your Kindle instead.
According to Amazon, the Library Lending service is not only exciting because it means that you'll be able to check Kindle books out from your local library, but also because you'll be able to do something you'd never dare attempt with regular library books:
"We're doing a little something extra here," [Amazon Kindle Director Jay Marine explained.] "Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we're extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check out from your local library. Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced."
Amazon is working with OverDrive, a company which already provides digital content solutions for more than 11,000 public and educational libraries in the United States, to bring Library Lending to those institutions by sometime later this year. In order to take advantage of it at that time, you'll need either a Kindle or a Kindle app on your Android, iPad, iPod Rouch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone device.
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Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook.