Forty-five year old Sushma Jalan, a homemaker, would beg, borrow and buy books to satisfy her daily craving. Till she came to know about an online library in the city.

“I would carry a book with me whenever I went to the dentist. He suggested I contact www.myonlinelibrary.co.in,” she said.

Bookworms in Calcutta are breathing easier. Books are now just a click away with three online libraries opening in the city in the past few months. While myonlinelibrary was launched in August, www.xelf.in was started end-July. The newest is www. doorstepbooks.com, started in October by Vikash Khandelwal and Kanupriya Khaitan.

Both were pursuing different jobs earlier. “We realised that so many people in the city were spending a lot of money on buying books. With space a constraint and the price of books on the rise, we thought an online library from where books are delivered and picked up would be helpful,” says Kanupriya.

The library has two other partners — Satarupa Roy and Aastha Khandelwal— and operates out of Canning Street.

For Bali D. Sanghvi and her partner, Nishita Garg, it was love for books that translated into myonlinelibrary. The two started work in October last year.

Xelf, with its office in Muktaram Babu Street, was first conceptualised differently. “I had thought of a book-swapping website. But I realised that book lovers might not feel comfortable giving away their books to a stranger. So I thought of an online library,” says Ridhi Agarwal, who runs the library with partner Amit Agarwal.

One has to register online to become a member. Books are delivered at home or office and picked up when they are due to be returned or when they have been read. “I just make my choice and the books are delivered to my home,” says Sushma.

It is especially helpful for working people. “After I started working, I just didn’t have the time to go to a library. This is so simple, because I am online all day anyway. Many of my friends and colleagues have also joined,” says 28-year-old IT professional Suparno Choudhury, a member of Xelf.

At doorstepbooks too, members are mostly in the 18-35 age bracket and are working.

Various kinds of membership modules are available. “There are no due dates and no late fees at doorstepbooks. Books are picked up once they have been read,” says Kanupriya.

The membership list of all three are growing— Xelf has around 85 members, myonlinelibrary has 20 and doorstepbooks has managed to earn 33 members in a month. All three use social networking sites like Facebook to reach out to prospective members.

Doorstepbooks also has schemes like “gift a membership”, “refer a friend” and “campus connect”, where a member can become the library’s representative on his or her campus.

The only problem is the restricted collections. At Xelf, for Amitav Ghosh, there are only The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide. The Shadow Lines or the recent Sea of Poppies are missing. Myonlinelibrary suffers from the same problem, though they have a wider collection, which includes art, archaeology, children’s fiction, cookbooks, self-help, fiction, non-fiction, comics and magazines. “We have about 3,500 books and magazines and about a 100-200 are added each week,” says Bali. But for Amitav Ghosh again, there are just two novels available.

Doorstepbooks has the biggest collection with about 6,000 titles. Books range from biographies to self improvement, health, fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. But they could add some modern classics to their list. Works of authors like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are missing.