Want to head to the library but not brave the winter chill?  There's now an app for that.  This week, Allentown became the latest area library to offer e-book checkouts.

"I have a Kindle and an iPad," said library patron Mary Ellen Hickes of Foglesville, Lehigh County.

For the uninitiated, "e-books" are electronic copies of books delivered electronically to the device of your choice.

"You can put it on a kindle, an iPad, or a Nook," said Ben Bertalan, an acquisitions librarian with the Allentown Public Library.

Allentown now joins Bethlehem and other area libraries in allowing patrons to check-out e-books.

"In the past year or so, we've had more and more requests for it," said Bertalan.

Apple iPad users can access the collection through the free "OverDrive" app.  Kindle users have to go to the library web site and add the book to their Amazon cart.  Users simply input their library card number and a PIN code; then they can keep the books up to 14 days before they automatically get deleted.

"If you're home at night and you want to read something and you don't want to go out in the winter when it's cold and dark, you just go online, download it, and boom, you've got the book," said Hickes.

For now, the number of e-books is still fairly small, only about 400 or so titles available in Allentown, compared to the roughly half a million hard copy books there.

"It's a little bit limited in comparison to the rest of the collection, but it's growing each month," said Bertalan.

Bertalan said a team of librarians picks which books to add, so if there's a title you want. just ask.

"It really depends on the publisher," he said.  "Some books are more costly than others."

"That's the way everything starts," added Hickes.  "If you remember years ago, libraries didn't have DVDs and now they have entire collections."

Access the Allentown Public Library e-book collection here

Access the Bethlehem Public Library e-book collection here.