Congratulations to our 46 new library partners from the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Turkey and Australia! These accounts are the first stand alone libraries, consortia, schools and colleges to launch with digital collections in the new year. Click on any link to be directed to each ‘Virtual Branch’ website.
Adlai E. Stevenson High School (Illinois) http://d125.lib.overdrive.com
Allentown Public Library (Carbon Lehigh Downloadable Library) (Pennsylvania) http://cldl.lib.overdrive.com
Appalachian Regional Library (North Carolina) http://arl.lib.overdrive.com
Ascension Parish Public Library (Louisiana) http://overdrive.myapl.org
Atwater Library and Computer Centre (Canada) http://atwaterlibrary.lib.overdrive.com
Barnstable High School (Massachusetts) http://barnstablehighschool.lib.overdrive.com
Boston College (Massachusetts) http://bc.lib.overdrive.com
Brighton Grammar School (Australia) http://brightongrammar.lib.overdrive.com
Buckinghamshire County Council (United Kingdom) http://buckinghamshire.lib.overdrive.com
Downers Grove North High School (Illinois) http://dgnhs.lib.overdrive.com
Eastern Shore Public Library (Virginia) http://espl.lib.overdrive.com
Edmonton Public Schools (Canada) http://epsb.lib.overdrive.com
Excelsior Springs School District (Missouri) http://essd40.lib.overdrive.com
Francis Parker School (California) http://francisparker.lib.overdrive.com
Grace A. Dow Memorial (Michigan) http://www.midland-mi.org/overdrive
Heritage Christian Online School (Canada) http://heritageebooks.lib.overdrive.com
High Tech High (California) http://hightechhigh.lib.overdrive.com
Hilton College (South Africa) http://hilton.lib.overdrive.com
Jasper Dubois County Contractual Public Library (Indiana) http://jdcpl.lib.overdrive.com
Lake Highland Preparatory School (Florida) http://lhps.lib.overdrive.com
Lake Wales Charter Schools (Florida) http://lwcs.lib.overdrive.com
Lancaster County Library System (South Carolina) http://lancastersc.lib.overdrive.com
Lawrence Central High School (Indiana) http://lawrence.lib.overdrive.com
Metcalfe County School District (Kentucky) http://metcalfe.lib.overdrive.com
Mohawk Valley Library System (New York) http://mvls.lib.overdrive.com
New Haven Community Schools (Michigan) http://newhaven.lib.overdrive.com
New Lisbon Schools (Wisconsin) http://nlsd.lib.overdrive.com
Northwestern Regional Library (North Carolina) http://nwrl.lib.overdrive.com
Novo Nordisk (New Jersey) http://novonordisk.lib.overdrive.com
O’Gorman High School (South Dakota) http://oghs.lib.overdrive.com
Oologah-Talala Public Schools (Oklahoma) http://otpslibrary.lib.overdrive.com
Ozyegin University (Turkey) http://ozyegin.lib.overdrive.com
Piedmont Regional Library System (Georgia) http://prlib.lib.overdrive.com
Pine Bluff Jefferson County Library System (Arkansas) http://pbjclibrary.lib.overdrive.com
Pueblo City-County Library District (Colorado) http://downloadables.pueblolibrary.org
Richmond-Tweed Regional Library (Australia) http://eresources.rtrl.nsw.gov.au
South Ripley Community School Corporation (Indiana) http://southripley.lib.overdrive.com
St Hilda’s School Gold Coast (Australia) http://sthildas.lib.overdrive.com
St. Lawrence University (New York) http://stlawu.lib.overdrive.com
St. Lucie County Library System (Florida) http://stlucieco.lib.overdrive.com
Tipton County Public Library (Indiana) http://tiptonpl.lib.overdrive.com
Washington District Libraries (Pennsylvania) http://waggin.lib.overdrive.com
Wausau East and West High School (Wisconsin) http://wausau.lib.overdrive.com
Westlake High School (Texas) http://whs.lib.overdrive.com
White County Regional Library System (Arkansas) http://wcrls.lib.overdrive.com
Williamsville Central School District (New York) http://overdrive.williamsvillek12.org
If you would like a suggested title list created for your library or consortium, please contact OverDrive’s content sales team at collectionteam@overdrive.com.
Melissa Work is a marketing & outreach specialist at OverDrive.
On February 1st faculty, teachers and students from all across America will partake in a national celebration of technology. The first annual Digital Learning Day is dedicated to engaging students and teachers with the newest technologies available in the educational world.
The founders have created the website Digital Learning Day full of great ideas, tool kits and showcases of school districts that are using digital media and advanced technologies to further their students’ educations. There will even be a town hall meeting you can register for to learn more about the digital learning movement put on by the Alliance for Excellent Education.
If you aren’t able to institute any of their innovative lesson plans, I have some simple ideas for you to use with your students:
- During silent reading, instead of having students pull out text books, have them check out a title from your digital collection.
- Pull up a title on an Interactive White Board for open discussion about sentence structure and parts of speech. Allow students to highlight favorite or important quotations.
- Assign a book report using Maximum Access titles.
- If you’re just getting started with your OverDrive service, spend 15 minutes at the end of class walking your students through the process.
Digital learning day may be February 1st, but incorporating technology into your lesson plans can be a day-to-day exercise. Whether it’s keeping your students engaged with your OverDrive service or by using Digital Learning Day’s great website tool kits, there are endless ways to keeping your classroom ahead of the curve.
Adam Sockel is a marketing and outreach specialist for OverDrive.
When I was 17 I read A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones three times. It was mystery and suspense wrapped in a delicate angst-y sweater…so naturally, perfect for my little, teenaged self. I was so wrapped up in college essays, AP exams and who was taking me to prom at 17 that I forgot how much I loved to read. Wynne-Jones brought me back.
Having survived my teenage years and still being close enough in age to accurately reflect—I can honestly say, reading is the last thing you think about as a teenager. Everything seems so infinite in high school. You think you’ll stay best friends forever. You’ll be in love forever. You think every moment gets trapped in time. You lose focus a little. But don’t worry, we don’t lose ourselves completely. It’s the little things that end up keeping you grounded when you’re growing up. Here are a few little things to bring the teens in your life back down to earth:
The Sky is Every Where By Jandy Nelson: When you’re young you don’t think about death invading the realm of your youth, because why would it? You have your whole life in front of you. Lennie Walker is 17 and living in the shadow of her evanescent sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies, Lennie is cast into the bright wide light of the world with no instruction on how to exist without the sister who so brilliantly shined in it. Nelson explores grief, love and moving on in a beautifully written ode to growing up.
Cinder by Marissa Meyer: This isn’t your beloved fairytale. Meet Cinder, gifted mechanic and cyborg trying to get by in New Beijing—a futuristic world where machine and man intermix on the city’s crowded streets. Yes, our future Cinderella still has a nasty stepmother and a handsome prince, but Cinder is more than a fairytale princess. The fate of the world hinges on her small almost human shoulders.
Ashfall by Mike Mullin: Imagine a weekend home by yourself without the distraction of your parents or pesky siblings. The TV is yours to commandeer and the fridge yours to pillage. Now imagine that on that weekend a Yellowstone supervolcano erupts and rains fire and ash down on your hometown. Welcome to the apocalypse, population: you.
*Title availability may vary by geographic location.
Christina Bernecker is a training associate for OverDrive.
Welcome aboard OverDrive’s eBook Culinary Tour of the American South! I hope ya’ll are hungry! We’ll be stopping at some of Dixie’s best local restaurants to experience good eats, fabulous recipes and secrets from the region’s homegrown cooks!
First stop is Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant in Staunton, VA. This small-town staple has been family-owned and serving up home cooked Southern favorites since 1947. Save room for dessert! There’s Apple-Dapple Pie, Smoothest Ever Peanut Butter Pie, and Virginia’s Almost Impossible Coconut Pie. At home you can learn to master Mrs. Rowe’s perfect pie crust with step-by-step instructions in Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies.
Now let’s head down to Nashville, TN. We might just get lucky and bump into a celebrity at The Loveless Café! I can’t decide between the roasted butternut squash soup with cornbread croutons, the chicken and dumplings or the black-eyed pea and country ham chowder. Good thing I can make them all at home from Southern Country Cooking from the Loveless Café: Fried Chicken, Hams, and Jams from Nashville’s Favorite Café.
Our next stop is the South’s weirdest city, Ashville, NC. No trip to Ashville would be complete without a stop at the Tupelo Honey Café. Heavenly appetizers include baked goat cheese and smoked tomato dip with garlic crostini, crispy fried artichokes with oven-roasted tomatoes and lemon vinaigrette, and nut-crusted brie with cabernet balsamic-glazed figs. Make them for your next party with Tupelo Honey Café: Spirited Recipes from Asheville’s New South Kitchen.
We’re moving on to a place that I once called home for three years, the South Carolina Lowcountry. We’ll take a short drive from Charleston out to the Old Post Office Restaurant on Edisto Island. I don’t know about you, but I can never get enough fresh caught, southern cooked seafood! I’m dying to make something from Cooking in the Lowcountry from the Old Post Office Restaurant: Spanish Moss, Warm Carolina Nights, and Fabulous Southern Food. That subtitle says it all. For more authentic Lowcountry recipes, you may also want to try Seafood Favorites: Recipes from the Lowcountry and for a twist a South Carolina favorite, try Nathalie Dupree’s Shrimp and Grits.
On to Georgia! We’ve got a lot cover here. Our first stop will be The Lady & Sons Restaurant in Savannah and I can’t think of a better place to get started in Georgia than a restaurant owned and operated by Paula Deen! You can cook up your own versions of Paula’s buttery goodness at home with The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook. On our way to Atlanta, we’ll stop by a local favorite restaurant, The Blue Willow Inn. Baked pineapple casserole, orange pecan glazed chicken and wild rice, and grits lasagna are few specialties you’ll find in The Blue Willow Inn Cookbook: Discover Why the Best Small-Town Restaurant in the South is in Social Circle, Georgia. Moving on to Atlanta, we’ll drop by The Flying Biscuit Café. How about watermelon and mint salad, Jack Daniel’s espresso black bean chili, or chocolate biscuit bread pudding with honey crème anglaise? Recipes can be found in The Flying Biscuit Café Cookbook.
Continuing on to our final destination, it’s time for southern BBQ! We’ll be stopping in Decatur, AL, for some BBQ of the world championship variety. Want to give it a go yourself? Be sure to use advice from Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ Book: Recipes and Secrets from a Legendary Barbecue Joint. Mouthwatering recipes include grilled chops with apple-cranberry maple glaze, barbecue bacon-wrapped shrimp with basil stuffing, pecan-crusted pork tenderloin pinwheels with Carolina mustard sauce, and that’s just the pork section.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Southern culinary eBook tour as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it! To continue the tour, log in to Content Reserve for a suggested title list of Southern Cookbooks and more great Southern restaurants!
*Title availability may vary by geographic location.
Karen Donovan is a collection development associate at OverDrive.
Cindy Orr talks big books to look forward to this year in her monthly column:
What better way to start a new year than to take a look at some of the books we can anticipate with pleasure in the next few months? While the Fall Announcements are not out quite yet, we have a pretty good list of upcoming titles that should be available in digital form:
Fiction
JANUARY
- Margot Livesey – The Flight of Gemma Hardy (HarperCollins) Jan 24
- Robert Harris – Fear Index (Knopf) Jan 31
FEBRUARY
- Dan Chaon – Stay Awake (short stories) (Ballantine) Feb 7
- Deborah Crombie – No Mark Upon Her (Morrow) Feb 7
- Frank Delaney – The Last Storyteller (Random) Feb 7
- Robin Hobb – City of Dragons (HarperVoyager) Feb 7
- Lisa Unger – Twice (Broadway) Feb 7
- Elizabeth Moon – Echoes of Betrayal (Del Rey) Feb 21
MARCH
- Kathryn Harrison – Enchantments (Random) Mar 6
- Hari Kunzru – Gods Without Men (Knopf) Mar 6
- Naomi Novik - Crucible of Gold (Del Rey) Mar 6
- Thomas Perry – Poison Flower (Jane Whitefield) Mar 6
- Lauren Groff – Arcadia (Voice/HarperCollins) Mar 13
- Suzanne Brockmann – Born to Darkness (Ballantine) Mar 20
- Lionel Shriver – The New Republic (HarperCollins) Mar 27
- Danielle Steel – Betrayal (Delacorte) Mar 27
APRIL
- Alexander McCall Smith - The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Pantheon) Apr 3
- Phillip Margolin – Capitol Murder – (HarperCollins) Apr 3
- Christopher Moore – Sacre Bleu: a Comedy of Art (Morrow) Apr 3
- Sidney Sheldon & Tillie Bagshawe – Angel of the Dark (Morrow) Apr 3
- Anne Tyler – The Beginner’s Goodbye (Knopf) Apr 3
- Ron Rash – The Cove (Ecco) Apr 10
- Roberto Bolano – The Secret of Evil (New Directions) Apr 17
- William Boyd – Waiting for Sunrise (HarperCollins) Apr 17
- Anne Perry – Dorchester Terrace (Charlotte and Thomas Pitt) (Ballantine) Apr 17
MAY
- Alison Bechdel – Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (Houghton) May 1
- Nell Freudenberger – The Newlyweds (Knopf) May 1
- Toni Morrison – Home (Knopf) May 8
- Peter Carey – The Chemistry of Fear (Knopf) May 15
- China Mieville – Railsea (Del Rey) May 15
- Richard Ford – Canada (Ecco) May 22
- Paul Theroux – The Lower River (Houghton) May 22
JUNE
- Lincoln Child – The Third Gate (Doubleday) Jun 12
- Mark Haddon – The Red House (Doubleday) Jun 12
- Jess Walter – Beautiful Ruins (HarperCollins) Jun 12
- Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan – The Night Eternal (HarperCollins) Jun 26
AUGUST
- Martin Amis – Lionel Asbo: the State of England (Knopf) Aug 21
- Justin Cronin – The Twelve (sequel to The Passage) (Ballantine) Aug 28
Nonfiction
JANUARY
- Michel Houellebecq – The Map and the Territory (Knopf) Jan 3
- William Gass – Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts (Knopf) Jan 17
FEBRUARY
- Katherine Boo – Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (Random) Feb 7
MARCH
- Alain de Botton – Religion for Atheists: a Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion (Pantheon) Mar 6
MAY
- Robert Caro – The Passage of Power: the Years of Lyndon Johnson (Knopf) May 1
- Anna Quindlen – Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake (Random) May 1
Fall:
- John Banville – Ancient Light (Knopf)
- Michael Chabon – Telegraph Avenue (Harper Perennial)
- Barbara Kingsolver – Flight Behavior (HarperCollins)
- Philipp Meyer – The Son (Random)
In the fall of 2011 I conducted a survey sent out amongst all of OverDrive’s K-12 partners who are currently using our School Download Library platform. With the massive growth experienced across the board throughout the past year, we were interested in obtaining feedback specifically from our fastest growing segment: schools. The numbers were, shall we say, astonishing.
Thanks to the hard work of many over the past 12 months the number of K-12 students now accessing OverDrive’s services now surpasses 1 million users. These students come from hundreds of schools throughout the world. In fact, OverDrive now works with schools in more than 15 countries around the globe spanning every continent save for Antarctica, of course (penguins, it seems, are not big into reading).
While we here at OverDrive take pride in those statistics; this survey wasn’t created simply for numbers. I wanted to learn how schools and their students are using the School Download Library. When asked how the service is being implemented over 60% of the responses mentioned that they use OverDrive as a part of their daily curriculum. Specific responses included using audiobooks for ESL and Special Education classes to help with pronunciation and providing additional reading materials to enhance lessons from textbooks. It was also learned that nearly 83% of schools provide their students with Wi-Fi internet to allow for the downloading of titles using their own devices and phones.
Being a Marketing & Outreach Specialist, I took personal pride in seeing that 70% of schools are using OverDrive-created marketing materials to reach out to their students. However, schools are also using the communication templates found on the Online Marketing Kit, sending newsletters out to parents, making morning announcement and connecting with students via social networking.
When asked whether or not they would recommend OverDrive to other schools 97% of responders said yes. That said, we realize that this is an ever-growing product and there will always be room for improvement. We received dozens of suggestions for improvements as well as requests for additions to our content, which you can look forward to seeing throughout 2012.
I want to say thank you to everyone who participated and you can expect to see this growth continue through 2012 and beyond. If you ever have any questions, comments or suggestions pertaining to the School Download Library product please don’t hesitate to contact your Account Specialist or myself directly at asockel@overdrive.com. We’re here to help!
Adam Sockel is a marketing and outreach specialist for OverDrive.
A few years ago, during silent reading, a student of mine took out his cell phone and proceeded to stare at it. I told him to put it away and take out a book, but he insisted that he was reading. When he brought his phone to me, I did in fact see that he was reading an eBook. I was amazed; I knew this was going to be the future and I knew I had to embrace it.
I did some digging and found that my public library had OverDrive’s digital library. As I was browsing the collection I found the audiobook Night by Elie Wiesel. My class was reading this, so I checked it out and played it for them while they read along in their books. My students said they loved it because it helped them pronounce unfamiliar words. Because that went so well, I checked out an eBook and displayed that on my Promethean board, having the students highlight phrases or passages pertaining to our lesson that day.
Soon after, I came to OverDrive and wanted to share with you exactly what I learned firsthand: Having a digital library in your school makes life in the classroom that much better! Students can check out titles from their desks on their own devices, they can choose titles appropriate for their reading level, and there are no more library fines (the digital titles automatically return themselves to the collection at the end of the lending period).
So please make sure you stop by the OverDrive Booth (#450) to learn more about the benefits of using OverDrive’s School Download Library in your school.
Sarah Kaminski is a training specialist for OverDrive.
While attending American Library Association Midwinter Conference in Dallas this weekend, OveDrive will release 2011 year-end stats. Due to the rapid expansion of device compatibility and consumer awareness, eBook discovery and online reader visits at libraries and schools worldwide experienced triple digit growth in 2011.
Key statistics for library eBooks, audiobooks and digital media from OverDrive-powered ‘Virtual Branch’ websites in 2011 include:
- 1.6 billion book and title catalog pages viewed, up 130% from 2010
- 99.5 million visitor sessions, up 107%
- Mobile device use increased to 22% of all checkouts
- 35 million digital titles checked out in 2011, with 17 million holds
- The OverDrive catalog for libraries now includes 700,000 copyrighted eBook, audiobook, music, and video titles in 52 languages, including 300,000 titles added in 2011
- In 2011 OverDrive Media Console (free eBook and audiobook apps) was installed by 5 million users (up 84%) bringing the total install base to 11 million
- Readers used OverDrive eBooks on all desktop and major smartphone and e-reading platforms including Android, iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad®, Windows® Phone and BlackBerry®, as well as Kindle®, NOOK™, Sony® Reader and others.
At the ALA Midwinter Conference OverDrive will demonstrate new digital book discovery services to help libraries meet eBook demand. These include a new OverDrive “All Digital” catalog feed that will provide library visitors immediate access to browse and sample entire publisher and author eBook and audiobook backlist and long tail collections regardless of whether the library has acquired units for lending. For participating libraries, the service also features patron-driven acquisition options and “Buy it Now” links connecting readers with booksellers, which in turn pay the referring library affiliate fees for all referrals that result in a sale.
For more, read the whole press release.
Brianne Carlon is a public relations specialist for OverDrive.
When my ninth grade English teacher forced The Hobbit upon my class, it was met with mixed reactions based on a number of factors, but generally they were these: You either got it, or you didn’t. Without typecasting a particular faction, I’ll just say that there were certain characteristics common to the “got it” group, and that in high school these characteristics may have been a bit of social suicide— if you were into the whole “popular clique” thing. Chances are, though, if you enjoyed The Hobbit, you didn’t really care about rolling with the so-called “cool kids” and power to you (personally, I didn’t care for The Hobbit way back when, and this is in no way indicative of my middling social-circle status.) Nonetheless, this title was required reading and we were all stuck with it. The Lord of the Rings, however, was not required, and as shocking as it was to me, some kids in school actually read it for pleasure!
When I went back to re-read this book (after thoroughly enjoying the films), I was amazed to discover how far off I was the first time around. I discovered that my disdain for this adventure stemmed from a very old animated version of The Hobbit in which Bilbo resembles a somewhat disheveled-looking cross between Friar Tuck and one of the “Who-Children” who got caught sneaking up Mount Crumpit to see the Grinch. Thank goodness for Peter Jackson!
The Lord of the Rings novel (don’t call it a trilogy!) follows the quest of Frodo Baggins, orphan and younger cousin of Bilbo, after he inherits the One Ring and attempts to send it to an eternal resting place at the bottom of a lava-filled volcano. There are countless twists, turns and tales along the way, all of which make this an incredibly interesting (if lengthy) read for all ages.
With a new film adaptation of The Hobbit set to release in December of this year, the popularity of The Lord of the Rings will certainly begin to increase, as will the demand for copies from patrons at your library.
Grab The Lord of the Rings today in the HarperCollins portal at Content Reserve and give it a second look. You might be surprised at what you find.
Jason Sockel is a Collection Development Associate at OverDrive.
OverDrive is gearing up for ALA Midwinter in Dallas, January 20-24.
The OverDrive team will be demonstrating our newest services, including details of the WIN Catalog and other advancements:
- Dozens of new eBook and audiobook collections, including simultaneous use options.
- OverDrive GPS™: The new user experience that quickly connects users with only titles compatible with their devices or readers.
- Test Drive™: A program to help libraries use devices for demonstrations and lending to patrons.
- OverDrive Help: New resources to enable patrons to easily find answers, including full-text searching and sharing of how-to articles.
- What’s next for OverDrive eBook and audiobook mobile apps.
If you or any of your colleagues are planning to attend, you are invited to visit the OverDrive booth (#845) for theater-style presentations and demonstrations every hour; with a chance to win an MP3 player. Additionally, you can schedule a partner briefing with an OverDrive team member. If interested, email me at ALAMidwinter2012@overdrive.com.
We hope to see you at ALA Midwinter in Dallas. Safe travels!
Shannon Lichty is manager of library partner services for OverDrive.
