Google is teaming up with a dozen college campuses across the U.S. to provide access to free Chromebook notebooks to any student who wants one, in a system that lets them temporarily check out the laptops for late-night cram sessions or just finding the best animal GIFs on Imgur.The Google program features fun-colored café-style installations like the one pictured above, which will tour the 12 campuses this school year. The Lending Library has the fairly clear intent of getting students some hands-on time with Chromebooks and Chrome OS, which Google clearly sees as a smart fit for the college set, but which could also undeniably use a grassroots student body-led adoption movement to pick up steam.The Lending Library will make a three-day appearance at various schools beginning in September, and running through October, and Google promises more dates to come. It’s operating on a first-come, first-serve basis, and checkout periods can span the entire stay of Google on that particular campus, but not longer – anyone who exceeds the time limit will be charged for the device, but Google also says there are “no hard feelings” if that ends up happening.A trial period could spark interest in lightweight, inexpensive notebooks running on Google’s curious desktop OS, but it will take a lot of legwork to make these more popular than the MacBook, which is present in higher ed to a degree that helps explaining the Mac’s continued growth even in the face of a slumping PC market.
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