The town of Aridagawa in the Wakayama Prefecture of Japan has just launched an e-library, reports the Yomiuri.

The new e-library has only 1000 titles at the moment, which can be read on a computer or iPad. The service is available for either residents of the towns of Aridagawa, Yuasa or Hirokawa, and to those who commute, for work or school, to these towns. The service is accessible 24-hours a day, and can be accessed from anywhere.

Besides books, the collection allows access to digital copies of local documents, archives, and historical maps, previously near inaccessible to the public. The service will also be able to handle materials that include animation and sound. Five materials can be checked out at a given time, and the loan period is one week, after which it is automatically returned.

The article does not say whether this is the first public e-library of its kind in Japan. It would be quite interesting if it is, as many public libraries in the US have already established a system for loaning out e-books. The fact that only a thousand titles are available at this time is also… underwhelming. However, most American libraries rely on Amazon’s Kindle format for their e-collections, which is not available in Japan…yet.

Very interesting to see how e-libraries will develop in Japan.