DeKALB | The DeKalb Public Library, 309 Oak St., has recently invested in a number of e-books that will be accessible to anyone with a library card.

Dee Coover, DeKalb Public Library director, said the e-books can be downloaded to any computer for up to three weeks, after which they will be erased. The library has subscribed to these e-books but they will not be available to the public until about the middle of May. The DeKalb Public Library also offers a wide variety of downloadable audio books which are currently accessible.

Chalermsee Olson, associate dean of Collections and Technical Services at NIU’s Library, said e-books are a trend that libraries are moving toward.

“We are even seeing a lot of books that are born digital,” Olson said. “E-books might start to take the place of written books because written books are more expensive.”

Patricia Adamkiewicz, assistant to the director, said that the DeKalb library will be subscribing to the e-books through the website Overdrive.com. Users will then be able to download the e-books from the library’s website after inputtting their library card information. Adamkiewicz said that the library will not be loaning out any e-reader devices.

Wendell Johnson, Board of Trustees President of the DeKalb Public Library and Social Sciences Librarian at NIU’s Founder’s Memorial Library, explained that the loaning out of e-readers leads to larger copyright issues. For example, if the library were to loan out a Kindle from Amazon then it would be forced to purchase all of its e-books from Amazon; the same goes for all types of e-reader devices.

According to its website, the Founders Memorial Library also loans out more than 35,000 e-books. The e-books can be accessed through the library’s website at www.ulib.niu.edu.

NIU’s e-books can be accessed both on and off campus.

Olson said NIU’s e-brary, or library of e-books, has many benefits.

“With e-brary you can manipulate many things about your e-book,” Olson said. “You can change your font size and style, create your own bookshelf, and highlight with a variety of colors. All right on your home computer.”