Description
Onleihe is the digital lending service of public libraries in German-speaking countries: with a library card, readers borrow e-books, audiobooks, newspapers, magazines and videos from home, and the files stop working at the end of the loan. It is an alternative to buying e-books and audiobooks from Amazon Kindle or Audible.
It started in 2007 with a pilot in Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Würzburg. Divibib GmbH of Reutlingen, part of the ekz library-services group, ran it until August 2026, when the American company OverDrive bought divibib and announced that Onleihe would move step by step to its Libby app, with the timetable still to be announced. In 2022 more than 3,500 libraries took part, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein and other countries, along with the Goethe-Institut. The library pays for the licences; for the reader, the service comes with the library card.
Each licence is usually lent to one reader at a time, for up to 21 days, so popular titles have waiting lists, and some publishers release new books to libraries only months after publication and at higher prices. E-books come as EPUB with copy protection (DRM) and work in the Onleihe app, on Tolino and other e-readers, and on Kindle Fire tablets, but not on Kindle e-readers. In February 2026 the Onleihe app was rated under 3 out of 5 on Android and under 2 on iOS.
Strengths
- Included with the library card, which costs little or nothing in many towns.
- E-books, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines can be borrowed from home at any time of day.
- Loans end automatically, so there are never late fees.
Weaknesses
- Popular titles have long waiting lists, and some new books reach libraries only months after release.
- It doesn’t work on Kindle e-readers, and the app is poorly rated, most often for audiobooks.
- The move to OverDrive’s Libby announced in 2026 hands the service to a US company, with no timetable yet.
Who it is for
Library members who read on a tablet, a phone or a Tolino-type e-reader and don’t mind waiting for new titles.
Sources
- onleihe.de redirects to divibib.com, which could not be read automatically.
- Wikipedia: Onleihe
- Börsenblatt: Overdrive übernimmt divibib (August 2026)
- Fachstelle Öffentliche Bibliotheken NRW: Onleihe soll schrittweise auf Libby umgestellt werden