Articles

E-books: The Process [Revised 2025]
by Glenn McEowen

This article discusses how the e-books [1] service works. We will consider the need for an e-book vendor and what it can do for us.

E-book technology assumes your church members have an electronic device that can connect to the Internet. The device contains software (an application or “app”) that can convert the downloaded e-book file into readable form, i.e. it appears on the screen as aprinted page. The app also handles touch gestures to turn pages and change settings such as font sizes. The devices include dedicated e-readers, tablets, smartphones, and computers. Almost everyone has access to some device that can run an e-reader app.

Before we discuss the vendor, let's look at several "vendor-less" ways to serve our e-book users:

• • Providing web site links that provide free, current e-books with limited-time, first-of-a-series, and "sample" titles.
  • Posting public domain titles for readers to download.
  • Providing e-readers or tablets that members can check out. The device is checked out containing pre-purchased titles. Kindles (not Kindle Fire) are     perfect for this purpose.

Most libraries, however, would prefer to create their own collections of current copyrighted e-book titles. These titles cannot be legally read unless the publisher, author, and others receive their fair share of the sales price. To assure the payments are made, the e-book files (titles) are encrypted. As encrypted files they are useless until an authorization key opens the file. Once authorized, the title can be read on the user's device. The authorization process is very technical and highly protected, but your members and library team will never have to directly deal with authorization. The encryption/decryption process absolutely requires the services of an e-book vendor. Every church library we know of uses OverDrive® as its vendor. There may be others that we don't know about.

The vendor has contracts with many publishers (certainly hundreds) and access to their titles (tens of thousands). Your church library's e-book collection is built by purchasing [2] these titles from the vendor.

When your church is ready to commit to e-books, the library will sign a vendor contract and determine a "go live" date. The vendor will create and maintain a web catalog containing your library's unique collection (purchased titles) with images, bibliographic details, and summaries. This catalog will have groupings by age, topic, fiction, non-fiction, etc., and your own curated sets. Each title will have its own page with "borrow" and "hold" links.

When a church member is ready to "check out" an e-book, he or she finds the desired title's page in the online catalog and clicks on the "borrow" link. Next, the member steps through the login and confirmation pages. In seconds, the title appears in the device's reading app ready to read. 

Behind the scenes, the e-book file has been 1) authenticated for that member, 2) downloaded to that member's device, and 3) unencrypted for use during the defined checkout period (usually 2 or 3 weeks). At the end of the checkout period, the e-book file returns to its encrypted state and is no longer readable … in effect, the title is "turned in." (Think about it: no overdue e-books and nothing to be shelved!)

The reading app (such as Libby®) is provided for free by OverDrive to be added to the church member's computer, tablet, or smartphone. Often church members may already have the Libby® app for use at school or with the public library. To use your church’s e-book library they only need to add it to Libby’s library list. OverDrive also supports Amazon’s Kindle® app.

After installing the reader app and downloading an e-book title the user can read it much like a print book, flipping pages, making notes, and highlighting phrases. Settings can be adjusted such as font type and size, background color, brightness, and daytime/nighttime preferences. The app “bookmarks” where the user left off and picks up right there when the user is ready to read again. Most apps include “dictionary lookup” by simply highlighting the word which is incredibly handy! Some titles can even read the text out loud.

When a church library is starting its e-book service, the vendor will provide online training for the library team. The vendor also has support pages and videos for teaching your church members how to use their reader apps like Libby and Kindle.

The vendor will maintain the library's stand-alone e-book web catalog and will provide cataloging files for e-book titles. These files (MARC format) can be directly imported into your library software. Adding these e-book records now makes the e-book titles accessible in the library's primary catalog as well as the vendors stand-alone e-book catalog. Cataloged e-book titles can be included in searches, in reports, or in lists the church library team creates appearing as just other type of media.

For all the great things e-books can bring to the church library, they are not something that entices readers as they browse your library’s shelves. E-books will need to be promoted in different ways. "Have you found our INVISIBLE library?"
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Glenn McEowen serves as a library volunteer at Wedgwood Baptist in Fort Worth, TX. He is the VP of Sales
and Development with Library Concepts.

This article is a part of a series on e-books on the Church Librarians Network

[1] The term e-books is used to describe both electronic books (including text and illustrations) and audio books. These are typically downloaded (or streamed) to devices such as e-readers, smartphones, tablets and computers.

[2] The term purchase is used to denote several payment options. More accurately, e-book titles are "leased" for as long as the e-book service is maintained. Titles are checked out by one user at a time with no limits as to the how many times they can be checked out. Some publishers, however, limit the check outs to a set number (commonly, 26) or limited time (2 years) after which the title must repurchased or dropped from the collection.

To print: EBOOKS_process