The e-books will be sold by software and book retailers. The actual number of members is not yet clear, since many libraries have been offered the opportunity to try netLibrary free for a period of from three to six months. Users can search for e-books by author, subject, title, key word, or phrase. Users are allowed to copy or print single pages of information. There is also a link for purchasing e-book titles.
Books are searchable both within a single title and across the collection purchased.
Libraries generally join by buying at least 500 books. In theory, participating libraries can eliminate overhead and infrastructure costs associated with book storage, maintenance, and replacement. Libraries also receive usage reports from netLibrary to help in managing collections. Many of these were in business and technology. It also had approximately 2500 public-domain titles.