Bringing Sidewalk Libraries Online

Bringing Sidewalk Libraries Online

by
Roni Bhakta
&
Mek
All around the world, sidewalk libraries have been popping up and improving people’s lives, grounded in
our basic right
to pass along the books we own: take a book, leave a book.
As publishers transition from physical books to ebooks, they are rewriting the rules to strip away the
ownership
rights
that make libraries possible. Instead of selling physical books that can be preserved, publishers are forcing libraries to rent ebooks on locked platforms with restrictive licenses.
What is a library that doesn’t own books?
And it’s not just libraries losing this right — it’s us too.
Did you know:
When a patron borrows a book from their library using platforms like Libby, the library typically pays each year to rent the ebook. When individuals purchase ebooks on Amazon/Kindle, they don’t own the book — we are agreeing to a “perpetual” lease that can’t be resold or transferred and might disappear at any moment. In 2019, Microsoft Books shut down and
customers lost access to their books
.
This year,
Roni Bhakta
, from Maharashtra, India, joined
Mek
from the Internet Archive’s Open Library team for Google Summer of Code 2025 to ask:
how can the idea of a sidewalk library exist on the Internet?
Our response is a new
open-source, free, plug-and-play
“Labs” prototype called
Lenny
, that lets anyone, anywhere – libraries, archives, individuals – set up their own
digital
lending library online to lend the digital books they
own
. You may view Roni’s initial proposal for Google Summer of Code
here
. To make a concept like Lenny viable, we’re eagerly following the progress of publishers like Maria Bustillos’s
BRIET
, which are creating a new market of ebooks, “for libraries,
for keeps
“.
Design Goals
Lenny
is designed to be
:
Self-hostable
. Anyone can host a Lenny node with minimal compute resources.
Easy to install.
A single
https://lennyforlibraries.org/install.sh
install script uses Docker so Lenny works right out of the box.
Preloaded with books.
Lenny comes preloaded with over 500+ open-access books.
Compatible with dozens of existing apps.
Each Lenny uses the OPDS standard to publish its collection, so any compatible reading app (Openlibrary, Internet Archive, Moon reader and others) can be used to browse its books.
Features
Lenny comes integrated with:
A seamless reading experience.
An onboard Thorium Web EPUB reader lets patrons read digital books instantly from their desktop or mobile browsers.
A secure, configurable lending system.
All the basic options and best practices a library or individual may need to make the digital books they own borrowable with protections.
A marketplace.
Lenny is designing a connection to an experimental marketplace so one can easily buy and add new digital books to their collection.
Learn More
Lenny is an early stage prototype and there’s still much work to be done to bring the idea of Lenny to life. At the same time, we’ve made
great progress
towards a wo…