Fellow librarians!
We did some research to see what was possible re e-books, besides OverDrive which seems too expensive for our [Canadian] setting. (I have followed Glenn McEowan's posts with much interest. But we don't have the geographical population for a consortium, etc, etc... )
Has anyone researched other options, such as Baker & Taylor/Axis 360? We would love to hear your yays and nays re e-books through something other than OverDrive.
Thank you!
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I'm just wondering if what makes more sense is for Christian readers to request more Christian titles from their public libraries who use Overdrive.
They are already set up for it and paying the fees, and if Christians ask for these materials, they will need to respond since their own public base is requesting it. Ot at least, they should. And Overdrive should feel some pressure to work more closely with Christian publishers. The net result will be more Christian materials for the wide public, which is a good thing.
I now work in a public library, as well as I and a few others are in the infant stages of starting a church library.
Glad to hear you are starting up a new library Deanna!
We have a city library rear us that has active collection development of Christian titles, including ebooks, so yes, at least some public libraries are responsive to requests for Christian materials. It can't hurt to ask! And the more people who do, the more they will take note! Or just ask them for specific titles, then make sure that your folks do check them out and read them!
Not sure if you've considered the amazon lending library option?
any books in your kindle library can be loaned to another person for a 2 week period from when they access it.
If you've built up or are building up an amazon kindle ebook library of free ebooks, it doesn't take long
to have a sizeable number available for lending... just a thought ;)
This is what we offer in our library. I have let it go for the past several months as I've been busy with other things. You can read all about our Kindle eBook lending program here: http://nccumc.org/mediacenter/kindle-ebooks/
Interesting concept!
Great to see it in action - just As I'd recommended on June 11th -
Glad to see it working well in your library as well & a descriptive procedure for others to follow.
Thanks to all of you who chose to add a comment. Life is hectic at the moment and the budget is "busted" for this fiscal year. But I still am interested in pursuing this when the opportunity looks brighter. Sincere appreciation for your input!
Now that I see Paul Adams picture, I believe he spoke to us at CSLA in SC last summer.
Bev, that was not me. I must have a look alike.
Overdrive has a list of publishers they carry and I found a good listing of Christian publishers. We examined the list carefully before signing up to make sure we could have access to most of the mainline Christian publishers. We have been satisfied for the most part but there are gaps.
I have also heard that Overdrive does allow church consortiums and there are a group of churches in Dallas on Overdrive together.
The advantage of a church library offering eBooks is that patrons don't have to worry about getting an inappropriate title that you have to wade through in the public libraries. Our patrons love it. Just wish it wasn't so expensive so more church libraries could do it. Not only is the yearly contract high the cost of many of the titles are more expensive than books and some will only allow you 26 check-outs and then you have to buy the title again. As indicated just be patient. Better options will probably be coming soon.
I too have looked into OverDrive and went to a workshop at CSLA in summer of 2013 to learn more about OverDrive. I agree that it is too expensive and no options to combine churches for a consortium. I have a wonderful school librarian in our congregation and he's looked at a couple of different options for our church library without any success. He said to be patient and something will come along within the next 1-2 years. He suggested purchasing some Kindles and load about 20 books on the Kindle for checkout. Personally, I think everyone has their own Kindles and can download any option that they want especially with availability of Amazon Prime. Be patient.
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