Either a borrower or a lender be

By G.F. | SEATTLE

THE first visitor to Johannes Gutenberg's shop after the inventor of the printing press had painstakingly produced a complete volume of the Bible for the first time probably asked if he could borrow a copy. He would be sure to return it in a fortnight after taking a skim.

Readers love borrowing books. Owners are often, understandably, reluctant to lend them. Loaning books is, after all, fraught with peril. Will a friend, colleague or acquaintance break the spine (a frequent and valid complaint of this Babbage's former flatmate), foul or dog-ear some pages, or disappear with the title, never to return?

On the surface, Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's e-book loan policy seems like the ideal solution to this age-old problem. Both firms allow lending of books, so long as the publisher agrees to it. Owners may lend their digital copy, though they can only do so once and for no more than a fortnight. As with traditional books, the title is unavailable to the owner during the loan period; and the work is deleted from the borrower's account after the 14 days. This is better than nothing, but much more could be done to ease the path to greater ebook adoption and consumption—for example, allowing owners to rent or resell their digital copies at will.

Two websites are pursuing an interesting intermediate step, inserting themselves as a cost-free broker between owners of books bought for Amazon's Kindle reader and prospective borrowers. Book Lending set up shop in January (it initially had Kindle in its name but Amazon insisted this be removed). Lendle launched just a few weeks ago. (Barnes & Noble's Nook reader is not supported by either for now.)

By joining one (or both) of the services, users gain access to an inventory of titles purchased from Amazon's Kindle Store by other members. But each middleman adopts a slightly different approach, in particular with regard to the social contract involved. Book Lender allows any registered user to request available books, and does not throttle requests. Nor does it require reciprocity, though frequent lenders get a boost in the queues for popular books. Lendle takes a different tack. Before anyone can borrow a book, he has to offer to loan at least one other, racking up two borrowing credits in return. "Lendlers" found to be accepting requests without fulfilling them will be banned.

Lendle members cannot borrow the same book successive times from different lenders; Book Lender has no such stated policy. Once a lender and borrower are matched, both sites proceed to send the borrower's email to the lender, who then manually enters that email at Amazon's website to initiate a loan. Both sites also allow early requests for books that no member has yet posted as available. On top of that, Lendle tracks books known to be unavailable for lending in Amazon's system. (Amazon does not offer comprehensive statistics on this though a quick perusal of this Babbage's personal—and surely unrepresentative—library revealed only two of a dozen Kindle books had a loan option.)

Jeff Croft, a designer and programmer who built Lendle, says the system is designed around a community of trust and tokens of exchange. "One of the things that we've really focused on on Lendle is to make it fair. If you don't lend, you can't borrow," he explains. Neither Lendle nor Book Lender collect fees from their customers, but the two sites have links to purchase books via Amazon's affiliate program, and get a small cut of every sale.

The links are meant merely to keep Amazon happy. In Mr Croft's view, Lendle may help spur sales. Not everyone will have the time and dedication to read every borrowed virtual book from cover to cover in 14 days. Those who do not may wish to purchase an electronic copy. It is a similar story when readers learn that a book they are after is not available for lending now or ever.

While Amazon has made no public statement about either site, it is difficult to see the company attempting to crack down on these matchmaking operations, although it certaintly could create deterrents and extra rules. As Mr Croft points out, "You can't borrow if you don't lend; you can't lend if you don't buy". The internet offers tutorials teaching how to break e-book encryption or extract the text in other sneaky ways. But both Lendle and Book Lender disavow such underhanded tactics. They promote ownership, not piracy.

One possible unintended consequence is that publishers become less inclined to allow lending in the first place. Unless, of course, data suggest that titles that frequently change hands in the lending services also see a subsequent spikes in sales. It remains to be seen whether they will.