Beginning today, our Overdrive site will have a new look.  You will notice a lot of changes in appearance and layout, but the nuts and bolts are the same. The checkouts, holds, and ‘My Account’ features you’ve grown accustomed to are unchanged. There are some great enhancements to note as well.

One particular feature we’re excited about is the enhanced catalog. To give it a try:

Step 1: Search for a favorite author from the search box on the main page.

Step 2: Run your search. Notice the Library Collection, Available Now, and Additional Titles tabs across the top of the results window.

Step 3: The Library Collection tab give you quick access to ebooks by your author currently in the Free Library’s collection. The Available Now tab shows which of those titles are available for check out right now, and the Additional Titles tab shows ebooks by your author that we don’t own yet. Explore the Additional Titles tab, and if you find an ebook you would like to read, click the Recommend icon. We’ll do our best to add the title to our collection. You can even opt to receive an email or put yourself on the holds list once we add the ebook.  

We hope that this enhanced catalog will allow us to offer even more of the titles you want to read.

You will notice other changes that Overdrive has made to the site as well. Of note, the site now includes advertisements for ebooks, authors, and upcoming literary events. These “Author Impressions” on the OverDrive site offer readers a way to connect directly with authors’ fan pages and learn about literary events. The ads also signal an effort by Overdrive and libraries to prove to those publishers who still refuse to sell their ebooks to public libraries that we can be a valuable platform from which to reach an educated, passionate community of readers (for more about which publishers won’t sell ebooks to libraries see our blog). 

We encourage your feedback on Overdrive’s new site and look forward to reading your comments below.  For help with using the site itself though, please contact support here, rather than using the comment section of the blog.