Penguin’s library ebook lending pilot program kicked off this week at the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library.

The digital titles are being made available through the 3M Cloud Library eBook Lending Service. The ebooks should be available nationwide to 3M library clients by the end of the year, according to a company press release.

3M’s current ebook lending base is about 70 libraries.

In addition to the Penguin collection, 3M says it will offer additional titles from its Cloud Library, which contains more than 200,000 titles from about 300 publishers. 

During this special pilot period at the New York-area libraries, patrons should be able to access digital titles remotely with their personal devices, including PCs, iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches, Nooks and Android devices. 

In other library e-lending news, PublishersLunch reports library ebook provider, OverDrive, will offer a  new Nook-specific app for the new Nook HD and HD+, along with Nook Tablet and Nook Color. The app is supposed to make it easier for patrons to borrow library ebooks remotely through their devices.

I recently got word my manuscript, The Parachutist, is a finalist in the 2012 Molly contest sponsored by the Heart of Denver Romance Writers.

The frosting on the cake is that my heroine, Manon, a parachutist inspired by a real French woman who lived in the early 1800s, is up for the Unsinkable Molly award, which judges spunk, imagination, creativity and unsinkability.

Here is the complete list of finalists:

Contemporary
Southern Comforts by Nan Dixon   
The Inconvenient Mistress by Mary Oldham          
Clear as Glass by Lynn Kellan             

Paranormal
Bound by Traci Douglass
To Catch a Fetch by Melonie Johnson
Must Love Breeches by Angela Quarles

Romantic Suspense
Grown Up and Still Running by Shelley Wall
The Distance Between Us by Linda Bond

Single Title
Murder, Curlers, and Cream by Arlene McFarlane        
Mesmerized in Madagascar by George & Noi Guthridge 
Emma’s Treasure by Judith Luke

Young Adult
Chimera by Laura Alford
Shadowman by Linda Kelley

Heart of the Molly
Beauty for Ashes by C. Elizabeth Carroll    
Death Whisperer by Katherine Matzen
Emma’s Treasure by Judith Luke                         

Unsinkable Heroine
A Scandalous Gentleman by Renee Ann Miller       
The Parachutist by Diana Quincy
Murder, Curlers, and Cream by Arlene McFarlane