The Digital Library Blog from OverDrive has announced the mobile “Virtual Branch website provided to partners has gotten a facelift.
The redesigned page is for the “Virtual Branch” mobile web site that is available (via partners) to all users WITHOUT having to download an app. Of course, the user only sees titles available for their library.
It’s very nice to see this update. Why? It’s easy to forget that many mobile users don’t have access to apps or (for whatever reasons) don’t want to download them.
The mobile web site will receive another update in December when OverDrive releases apps for iPhone and Android and begins providing access to some e-books. Blackberry and Windows Phone apps will follow.
Finally, beginning today the mobile version of OverDrive’s “Virtual Library” will automatically detect the mobile browser being used and serve a page optimized for the specfic device. When the new apps are released the automatic browser detection will also determine the e-book materials available for a specific device.
Unfortunately, to complicate ebook access a bit more some ebook formats are only available on specific devices.
You can read the full text of the OverDrive announcement and see a screenshot of the new mobile web interface here.
Via Resource Shelf
I found the mobile version of the site very frustrating. Why? Because even though, thanks to the Bluefire app, iphone users can now check out epubs and pdfs, the mobile Overdrive site only shows audiobooks. I’m more than a little tired of websites “helpfully” forcefeeding crappy mobile versions of their sites to devices that don’t need that, with no way to escape and see the full version.