Coming soon to your computer or iPad: your local iLibrary

LIBRARIES have done much to shed their staid, dusty image over the years, with internet access, cafés and even CD and DVD catalogues for borrowing.

But book-lending took a leap into the 21st century for residents of South Ayrshire yesterday with the launch of a new ebook library service that will give them round-the-clock remote access to a host of titles in digital form.

The local authority officially became the first in Scotland to unveil the new facility that will allow library members to download electronic and audio versions of about 200 titles.

The process is no different from buying a book on Amazon: users just need to browse the catalogue online, select up to four books, choose how long they wish to borrow the title for - up to three weeks is allowed - and enter their library-issued PIN number, and the book is delivered to their computer.

Once downloaded, the books can be read or listened to on a PC, laptop, mobile phone, ebook reader or MP3 player, for the time period before it is "returned" to the library and erased from their system.

Authors available for download include Kathy Reichs, Roald Dahl, Sophie Kinsella and Hilary Mantel. The list also includes autobiographies by Barack Obama and Sir Chris Hoy.

Users will also have to download specialised software for both reading and listening to the downloads.

A council spokeswoman said the aim of the scheme was to open its library facilities to a wider audience. It's about giving people who do not otherwise have the opportunities, to gain access to the library 24-seven and making borrowing as easy as possible."

The spokeswoman said that the system had already been running unofficially for a week, during which a quarter of their titles had been downloaded. The new system will cost the council 10,000 a year to support.

Kate Adamson, director of cmmunications agency Stark Moore Macmillan and an expert on ebooks, welcomed the move. She said: "It's great to bring ebooks to a wider population, and it will also mean libraries will be able to hold many more titles."

However, she added: "I think it also highlights a bigger issue, in that, in their traditional form, books can be read, then shown or shared around friends. Ebooks are the very opposite of that.

"You're not buying or borrowing a book, you're just accessing the right to read content which is meant for one person and one device, and that's a completely different concept."