Wicked Cool

Take Another Look at the Digital Download Center

If you remember hearing about OverDrive and the Digital Download Center and never really explored it, it's time to take a closer look.  The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium is building a great collection of digital audiobooks, music, and video that your patrons might enjoy -- but they can't benefit from it if they don't know about it, so here are some ideas to help get the word out:

1. Request a link on your library's homepage.  Easy-peasy!
   
   
2. Make sure someone on your staff is knowledgeable about the service.  The QuickStart Guide will get you familiar with how it works, and the Digital Book Center FAQ has answers to patrons' most frequently asked questions.
   
   
3. Ask your reference staff to mention it as another option for patrons looking for audiobooks.  Anything "free" and "available 24/7" usually goes over well.
   
   
4. Strategically place bookmarks and flyers around your CD and cassette collections where patrons can find them. These folks already like audiobooks -- they might appreciate getting them in an additional format.
   
   
5. Track the monthly statistics for your library to measure the outcome of your efforts.  The June statistics by library (in .XLS format) might have some surprises for you!

OverDrive copy protection discussion at Wired

Tame the Web and LISNews pointed out a spirited discussion of OverDrive DRM and public libraries at Wired news. The authors of the original post are shocked (shocked!) that libraries offer DRM-locked content that is limited to Windows machines. The comments are worth a read - at the time of this writing, they lean heavily to countering the authors' arguments.

The iPod incompatibility is, to me, the bigger problem than the fact the DRM exists (if it didn't, even fewer publishers would join OverDrive's catalog). But if the iPhone takes off, the situation will only get more divided, I think. Beyond that I don't want to prognosticate.

OverDrive gets easier

In October, OverDrive released a new version of the OverDrive Media Console software that's used to manage downloadable audiobooks from the WPLC Digital Book Catalog. Version 2.1 makes it much easier to transfer your books to a portable device, and new instructions are posted on the Digital Books FAQ wiki.

If you're like me, and don't have your own Windows-compatible mp3 player, don't forget you can borrow one from SCLS! Discounted players are also available to libraries directly from OverDrive's Gear2Go program.

The number of titles available has markedly increased over the last year, as have the usage statistics - so check out OverDrive again if you haven't lately.

OverDrive: Why not iPods?

Since iPods are selling at a rate of roughly 100 per minute, chances are that some of your patrons own iPods.  And some of these same patrons may want to use OverDrive with these iPods.

OverDrive Audio Books are delivered in the WMA format. Currently, neither iPods nor the Mac version of Windows Media Player support copy-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files.

However, determined patrons burn many of the OverDrive audiobooks to CD, load the files into iTunes, and transfer the files to their iPods.

For more details on this, please see the SCLS OverDrive FAQs -- http://www.scls.info/technology/overdrive