Overdrive has been selected by the Swedish library system to power their collections for the next four years. The Cleveland company managed to outbid the competition and sometime this year libraries will be able to offer their digital services to all of their patrons.
Librarians in Sweden selected Overdrive because they were cheaper than Axiell Media, the largest distributor of e-books and audiobooks in the Nordic region. Axiell bought out former market leader Elib in 2015 and currently, Axiell Media distributes over 20,000 titles from 650 publishers to about 300 libraries in Sweden and Finland.
A total of 980 municipalities, county councils and municipalities have the right to use SKL Kommentus procurement. Christian Nilsson, in charge of procurement at SKL Kommentus, said, “I hope that this procurement will lead to increased competition in the market and, on the other hand, improved opportunities for borrowers to borrow e-literature.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
