OverDrive is the leading source of ebook titles for over 15,000 public and school libraries who have adopted ebook-lending strategies for their patrons. This week, OverDrive is meeting with major international and domestic publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair—arguably the largest publishing industry event of its kind—to unveil its “Want It Now” (WIN) catalog for ebook-lending.
“Public libraries offer for lending a small fraction of publishers’ eBook or audiobook catalogs,” said Erica Lazzaro, OverDrive Director of Publisher Relations. “The WIN Catalog will take hundreds of thousands of early, midlist, and backlist eBook titles that are virtually invisible to library customers and present them for discovery. WIN will also enable for patrons who do not want to wait for popular titles to become available the option to immediately shop for it from a list of booksellers that support their local library.”
Libraries have always been some of the hardest hit in poor economic times, and even purchasing newly released and best-seller list titles can be a hardship. A feature like WIN will allow library patrons to discover what other titles are available, even if their own local libraries cannot afford to purchase and stock the titles. The WIN catalog will let patrons actually reference and sample other titles on publishers’ lists, even if they are not held by the library. Additionally, by working with online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes&Noble, BooksAMillion, and more through OverDrive’s affiliates network, libraries can actually profit by earning credits when their patrons opt to purchase a title that they found by browsing the WIN catalog.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.