Hachette Book Group reached an agreement with OverDrive today to offer its complete eBook catalog to libraries. AppNewser has all the details about the deal.
At the same time, New York Public Library president Anthony W. Marx wrote an op-ed about progress with digital books and libraries. Check it out:
Last September, Penguin agreed to make its e-books available to patrons at the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library, but with a six-month lag for new titles. Penguin recently agreed to release e-books to libraries at the same time its hardcovers came out. In April, Simon & Schuster agreed to sell e-books to the city’s libraries. Today’s announcement by Hachette (whose imprints include Little, Brown) is the capstone of that process. Many issues still need to be sorted out. Five of the Big Six are making their entire e-book inventory available to us to choose from, while Macmillan is offering only a limited selection.