This year’s Readmagine event featured long-time guest Johanna Brinton who delivered a detailed introduction into OverDrive.
In this video she explains how OverDrive acts as a middle-man between publishers and libraries. Though based in the US, the company operates across the world in over 100 countries and counting. OverDrive’s leading big catalogue of ebooks is available to libraries which she distinguishes in the following categories:
- Public libraries: Over 22,000 libraries (both major to local libraries)
- Schools (primary and secondary): 55,000 schools
- Academic, corporate, government, legal and special libraries: 1,500 + partner libraries including those serving prison inmates.
OverDrive Marketplace, with over 4 million books available, holds the title as the leading inventory of not only e-books but also magazines and audiobooks to name a few. OverDrive Marketplace is where libraries or schools purchase access to the catalogue. Pricing, access models and terms are all set by publishers and suppliers.
Brinton also explains the variety of different access models:
- One Copy / One User: One patron at a time for each unit in collection.
- OverDrive Max (newly added): A purchased bundle of loans at a bulk discount available to readers when needed (most often 100 units).
- Simultaneous Use – Single Title (STSU): Set price for all readers of a school or library for typically one year.
- Simultaneous Use – Plan (25 titles): Set price for a collection of simultaneous access titles.
- Cost Per Circ or loan (CPC): Library incurs a charge for every loan. Limited to one patron at a time, and each circulation generates a fee.
- Class Set (EDU only): Access limited by single assignment & time limit, such as 30 days.
This description shows the diversification in business models that OverDrive has experienced during past years (click video to watch Brinton’s 2018 presentation), making this company a solution adaptable to different conditions within library networks.
One important statement made by Brinton was about the interaction between publishers, platforms, libraries and readers. She argues that reader interest and engagement “is the most important part here and the biggest opportunity for both parties to work together” because “libraries are a very unique space in the community and the type of activities and the type of engagement across every social economic layer in that community in an area where working in the interest of the community and around books there is a closer collaboration that could happen between publishers and libraries”.
This video contains an impressive amount of specific details and powerful data shared by Brinton using the large information assets of OverDrive.
Johanna Brinton Abela is Senior Regional Manager EMEA, Global Libraries and Education at Overdrive working closely with publishers to make their digital content available for distribution to libraries. With over 18 years’ experience in dealing with digital content and publishing, Johanna is immersed within the diverse European publishing scene and aggregates the largest multilingual catalogue in the world. Johanna is passionate about books and reads three or four books a week in their original languages. OverDrive is the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools worldwide. Libby, the highly rated “one-tap reading app” for libraries, was named one of Google Play’s Best Apps of 2017. OverDrive is dedicated to “a world enlightened by reading” by delivering the industry’s largest catalogue of eBooks, audiobooks and other digital media to a growing network of 40,000 libraries and schools in 70 countries. Founded in 1986, OverDrive is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA. OverDrive became a Certified B Corporation in 2017.