Friday, July 5, 2013

Overdrive Shows Off Library Media Station at ALA 2013

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Overdrive is currently the largest digital ebook company that facilitates the loaning of content to libraries. At the American Library Association 2013 conference in Chicago, the company showed off its new Library Media Station.

The Overdrive Media Station is a touchscreen terminal that users can browse the library’s ebook, audiobook, music, and video collection. The terminal itself features Overdrive Read, which is its HTML5 technology that allows users to read samples and listen to audio right on the terminal. There are QR codes and an entry for your email address, so it can quickly send you the link to download the full copy of any type of content you want to borrow.

The Media Station in this video, features an “all in one” PC, but libraries can use their own touchscreen computers if they have licensing deals with other hardware companies. David Burleigh of Overdrive told me that “Libraries can purchase the optimized 27 inch touchscreen computer from us, or use their own. If they decide they want their IT department to deploy different computers, we will work with our partners to insure everything works properly.”

The one great thing about this Media Station is that libraries have a great deal of flexibility in showcasing their collections. They can create their own sections on the main home screen for genres they want to promote. This can be anything from Young Adult to the recent Best Sellers they have added. Of course, there are branding options to showcase the libraries’ logos and taglines.

You might notice in this video that we show you the new streaming video service. Overdrive is quietly testing this in beta, and has not announced anything official about the program yet. What we do know is that Overdrive signed a deal with Paramount Pictures for hundreds of movies. Overdrive has four other deals in play and will eventually roll out PPV events.


Overdrive Shows Off Library Media Station at ALA 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News

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