Penguin announced a return to library lending today, though the offerings are notably not new, not forever, and not Overdrive. Penguin fled Overdrive in February over the e-book hawker’s then-recent partnership with Amazon. This time Penguin is cautiously signing on with newbie 3M Cloud Library, which has recently moved out of beta and seems to have no plans to support Kindle lending. The Digital Reader pegs this inflexibility as a disadvantage, but Amazon's glacial partnerships and restricted devices seem poised to make Kindle the first casualty of the dedicated e-reader exodus. Penguin’s year long pilot program will begin in August at NYPL and Brooklyn Public and will test the feasibility of a 6-month e-publishing delay and 1-year renewal cycle.

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