LexisNexis today launched the LexisNexis Digital Library. The LexisNexis Digital Library is an ebook lending solution that allows organizations to loan out copies of primary law, deskbooks, legal code books, and treatises.
LexisNexis partnered with OverDrive to offer the lending solution. It will function similar the customized ebook lending sites that OverDrive has setup for public libraries.
Organizations that subscribe to the service will be able to build an ebooks library where users will be able to visit a customized site and borrow copies of ebooks that the organization has chosen to offer. The organization can choose which legal ebook titles from LexisNexis they want to include in their law library. They can also choose to offer any other ebook from OverDrive’s content catalog.
It’s unclear how the LexisNexis Digital Library will be priced, but it looks like it will be similar to how the OverDrive offering for public libraries operates. Most likely there will be an annual subscription fee for the OverDrive platform and then an additional per copy price for each ebook that the law library wants to lend out.
LexisNexis has dominated the law library space for a very long time and OverDrive is pretty much the only ebook lending platform at public libraries. It makes sense that the two decided to work together to provide ebook lending for law libraries.