Sony to Link Readers with Libraries

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Wired reports: At a press event hosted by the New York Public Library, Sony put their recently announced Reader hardware on display and provided an overview of its recent announcements. But the event was more than simply a recap of past announcements. The library location provided context for a program, which will be run through Sony's e-book store, which will allow users to identify their local public library borrow books through its site. There is also new hardware: by the holidays, Sony plans on having a 3G-enabled Reader with a tall seven-inch screen.

The upcoming hardware is called the Reader Daily Edition, which implies partnerships with news outlets. However, aside from the price and 3G capabilities, almost nothing was mentioned about the device. The Sony executive that ran his company's portion of the program (Steve Haber, president of its Digital Reading Business Division) did little more than wave the hardware in front of the audience; it wasn't even clear if it could actually be turned on. Still, it's clear that Sony's gearing up for a long-term battle with not only the Kindle, but the upcoming device (devices?) from Plastic Logic.

For now, however, Sony's attempting to leverage content as its competitive edge. The company had already announced that it was adopting the EPUB format, which is an XML-based standard for storing text that can be reflowed for different screen formats. As a result of that decision, the Sony library management software would be able to handle books from other resellers; Sony announced that over 200 members of the American Bookseller's Association would be selling compatible books that use Adobe's DRM service.

Sony is already offering access to public domain works from Google Books as well, and we talked briefly with Trip Adler from Scribd, who said his company's self-published works could easily be put on the reader via either PDF or EPUB. So it's clear that Sony is taking the opposite approach from Amazon, focusing on selling hardware that can display content from just about anywhere.

That "anywhere" will apparently include libraries. According to Sony's Haber, the new version of its online book store will allow users to enter their ZIP code and determine whether the local library offers electronic versions of its books. These books can be downloaded, at which point they'll have a 21-day expiration date—no late fees, as Haber was happy to point out. The New York Public Library's representative announced that his organization would be taking part in the service. That's a rather significant announcement, given that he said that the NYPL's website was the second-most visited online library, behind only the Library of Congress.

The new library software will have both Mac and PC versions, opening up the software to a wider audience. It's supposed to be available immediately, but neither of the software updates—the updated e-book store with library finder or the 3.0 version of the desktop library management software—were available as we prepared this story.

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