Thursday, November 1, 2007

Thing 22 : Audiobooks


Our library is one of the libraries in Maryland that subscribe to OverDrive. To access this digital library, all I need is a valid library card.


There are 2 ways to search the OverDrive collections. I can go to Maryland Digital eLibrary Consortium website, or I can search for downloadable audio or video titles in my library's online catalog, each downloadable title includes a link to the OverDrive page.


The OverDrive collection, which is quite small, is a supplement to our library's electronic resources. Navigating the site is easy, it is not as chaotic as some of the digital library sites I have seen. I can search by genre, title, author, release date and popularity. It seems our library already owns many of the popular audio books that are listed in OverDrive.


The capability to download digital content from OverDrive to a MP3 player is a big plus. In the past several years, we have witnessed how MP3 technology has dramatically changed the music industry, many of our customers are used to this format and have been regularly downloading music to their mobile multimedia devices. To entice customers to use our electronic resources, the MP3 capability is a must because that's what our customers would expect from a digital library.


At the end of this discovery exercise, out of curiosity, I decided to download the movie "8 1/2" from OverDrive to my computer. I quit in the middle of the downloading process, partly because it took too long, mainly because I realized this movie deserved a screen bigger than my 17" monitor, I should and will get a DVD copy of this title from my local library instead.


In this digital age, my library still matters.


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