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Walmart Now Partnered with OverDrive

The hot news this Tuesday morning is the launch of Walmart’s new ebookstore (powered by Kobo), but that is not the only potential bombshell dropping today.

I have just learned that Walmart has also partnered with Kobo’s sister company Overdrive to launch some kind of library ebook service. There has been no announcement, and this is literally the first time that this has been mentioned anywhere, so details are scarce, but I can confirm that the site is now live.

While I’m sure everyone’s first thought was that this is some kind of bid to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, I have been assured by OverDrive that this is just an internal project for Walmart employees.

This site is a corporate library for a subset of Walmart employees.  It’s been live for a few years.  As you know, we serve public libraries, schools and colleges, and also corporate libraries. Like many of our corporate library customers, they don’t promote it publicly.  So, nothing new to announce.

I have browsed the collection, and I have to concur. All 321 titles in this collection are non-fiction, and with categories ranging from self-help to finance, tech, and business this looks like the kind of library that a business would have for its employees.

OverDrive via MobileRead

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Comments


Jeffrey F. Smith August 22, 2018 um 10:33 pm

As an associate of WalMart I can say it is supposed to be an internal collection for WalMart associates who are taking advantage of corporate help in furthering their education. So yes nothing to really see there.

Nate Hoffelder August 26, 2018 um 7:37 pm

It really isn’t a story, but I’m leaving this up just in case someone jumps to the wrong conclusion. This is an anticipatory debunking.


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