Smartphones have been able to display and purchase e-books since the arrival of reading apps such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iBooks. Now an app affiliated with thousands of public libraries is bringing browsing, downloading and displaying e-book loans to handsets, too.

The free OverDrive Media Consolefor iPhone and Android taps into the digital collections of e-books, audiobooks, music and video titles offered by 13,000 public libraries, schools, colleges, and universities. Overdrive sells digital media to libaries,...