The New York Public Library is exponentially growing and seeing unparallelled success. In the last year digital circulation has increased over 81%, due to the proliferation of e-readers.
Currently the New York Public Library has six million print books in its hallowed halls and maintains a collection of 75,000 ebooks. Christopher Platt, The New York Public Library’s director of collections and circulation operations mentioned that, ”
It may not be surprising, then, that while more people are borrowing eBooks from libraries, more people are also going to libraries. “Our usage is going up as well,” said Platt as he pointed out that New York libraries loaned more than 28 million items in 2010. “That’s a lot of people coming through our doors.”
But the number of digital patrons is growing at a much faster pace. “We have, I think, over 150,000 Twitter followers on our flagship Twitter account and over 40,000 Facebook friends,” Platt said.
The Library is preparing for an onslaught of digital lending after the holiday season when more people end up getting new e-readers. If you are interested in borrowing books from the library to your device you can do it with most readers such as the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and many others. The library uses Overdrive for its content delivery system and it is fairly intuitive to use. All you need is a library card and a 4 digit pin number.
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.
