Kindle lets students rent digital textbooks

Amazon.com on Monday began letting students rent textbooks on Kindle electronic readers.

Kindle Textbook Rentals lets students pay based on how long they want to use textbooks, with periods ranging from 30 days to 360 days.

Renting a digital version of textbooks on a Kindle for a month can save students as much as 80 percent of the price of buying the works, according to Amazon Kindle vice president Dave Limp.

"Students tell us that they enjoy the low prices we offer on new and used print textbooks," Limp said.

"Now we're excited to offer students an option to rent Kindle textbooks and only pay for the time they need," he continued.

Amazon boasted having tens of thousands of digitized textbooks at amazon.com/kindletextbooks from publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis.

Margin notes and highlights added to rented textbooks will be saved on servers in the "Amazon Cloud" to let students access them anew when then rent works again, according to Limp.

Rented Kindle Textbooks can be read on many device including iPads, smartphones, computers, and iPod touch devices.

(c) 2011 AFP