Regardless of how the writers at Gawker may feel about the Sunday Styles section, I’ve always been a big fan of trend stories. And as a long-time freelance journalist, I’ve learned to keep a eye out for articles in small-town newspapers, for instance, that might be hinting at a trend-in-progress, but without even necessarily intending to.

Case in point: This story from last week’s Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which discusses the surprisingly rapid growth of the circulation of e-books at the small Texas town’s public library. In the span of just three years, according to the story, the library’s e-book circulation has risen approximately 200 percent, “from 15,000 to almost 45,000.”

Incidentally, the Lubbock Public Library utilizes the OverDrive platform to loan its books; OverDrive is also one of the five platforms used my hometown’s public library. I’m curious to hear about you own experiences while borrowing e-books—or attempting to borrow, as the case may be. If you know what platform your local library uses (or even if you don’t), please feel free to share your opinions, pro and con, about your e-borrowing experiences.

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Also Worth Reading: Does OverDrive really care about libraries?

 

5 COMMENTS

  1. Many publishers do not cooperate with Overdrive including Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette after 2009. Penguin no longer supplies new books for Kindle, not sure about e-pub. All of these large gaps in coverage make it tedious to find what one is looking for. My metro Chicago consortium has a lot of books, but a limited selection that I want to read. Another difficulty is that there is no way to search for new books. If we could do this say, once a week, and see what has been added, it would be easier to keep up with what they have. I do search frequently for individual books, but most of the time do not find them. That said, if I can find it, I put a hold on it or at least put it on my wish list for the future.

  2. My local library uses Overdrive. On the plus, they have been acquiring ebooks like crazy; it used to be a dozen new ones maybe once or twice a month, but now it’s 50 or more, at least once a week. It’s going gangbusters.

    The problem is, with so many publishers no longer playing ball on this, the selection is terrible. It’s all romance novels and vampire stories now. Not a lot of stuff in the genres I prefer. So I have been using it less often than I used to and just reading what I have.

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