Today Pottermore announced a deal with eBook distributor OverDrive to get the Harry Potter eBooks into public schools and libraries for digital lending!

The press release notes the significance of the announcement:

Under the terms of the agreement, OverDrive, a leading global distributor of eBooks and digital audiobooks, will manage hosting and digital fulfillment for libraries for the Harry Potter collection of eBooks and digital audiobooks in English and more than 20 other languages to OverDrive’s growing network of over 18,000 public and school libraries worldwide.

Through local public library and school catalogues, OverDrive’s digital book lending service will promote to new and returning readers a popular way to access the official Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks. The Harry Potter series has sold over 400 million copies worldwide and is widely credited with immersing an entire generation of young readers into books and reading. With this agreement, the seven books in the series will be available in digital formats for the first time for lending from public and school libraries.

As of this time there does not appear to be a start date for this deal but we are actively looking into it.

There’s also no mention of when the eBooks will be available on Pottermore’s website. They were originally scheduled to launch last year.