An OverDrive update from Steve

Dear Library Partner, I hope this message finds you well and enjoying the holiday season. On behalf of OverDrive, I am pleased to share with you a few milestone highlights and a look at what's ahead. A brief trip down Memory Lane I received an email last week from Tish Lowrey, Head of Technical Services at Cleveland Public Library (OH). She was excited to share with me the news that CLEVNET (emedia.clevnet.org) had reached its 1,000,000th digital book checkout for 2013. Tish's email triggered memories of OverDrive's journey serving public libraries that started in 2002. I was attending my first ALA Annual Meeting and was approached by librarians from Cleveland Public Library looking for a partner to develop a digital library lending service. That year, Tish and her colleagues Cindy Orr, Tracey Strobel, and Bob Carterette instructed OverDrive on how an eBook lending service should work with MARC records, ILS systems, and lending models—the beginning of a service that thousands of libraries use today. We launched the first digital library in 2003 under Sari Feldman's leadership (then Associate Director at CPL). We are grateful and proud to now work with many of you, the thousands of librarians around the world who provide us with professional and valuable guidance and insight. This journey has only been made possible by you. Just as the team at CPL worked with OverDrive to craft the initial release of the digital library platform, so too do many others join the ranks of pioneers. Thank you to Michael Ciccone, Miriam Tuliao, Michael Santangelo, Charlene Ruse, Bruce Shauer, Jennifer Simon Halai, Jed Moffitt, Sarah Redman, Terry Thompson, Wendy Bartlett, Michelle Jeske, Janet Ryan, Lisa Hill, Jim McCluskey, Deborah McCullough, Lauren Stokes, Jan Passo, Scott Reinhart, Laurie Lessner, Ruth Ann Copley, Rivka Sass, Debbie Baske, Paige Jaeger, Michael Colford, Nellie Moffitt, Anne Silvers Lee, Sarah Beasley, Carol Pelz, Carlton Sears, Ann Snivley, Margaret Yamasaki, Stephen Edwards, Martin Palmer, David Paynter, Peggy Murphy, Kathleen Sullivan, Rita Hamilton, Tom Horn, Rachel Martin, Charlie Parker and so many more. Your early belief in the possibility and promise of a digital library helped shape the future for millions of eBook readers worldwide. Constant innovation As a result of your valued guidance, OverDrive has continually responded by delivering what your readers want: the largest collection of eBooks for libraries, MP3 audiobooks, Streaming Video, Harry Potter in digital formats, Kindle compatibility, simultaneous use models, mobile apps for all major devices, collection development services for simplifying purchasing and managing holds, and circulation reports, among many other innovations. This past year, in particular, was very productive. OverDrive now offers all of the big six publishers (Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan). Your users are enjoying the "Next Generation" digital library experience optimized for every device. We introduced free MARC records via OverDrive MARC Express, and, with the release of the Circulation APIs in October, dozens of ILS, search applications and mobile services now provide deep integration of OverDrive titles. Other innovations launched this year were designed to help your library reach more segments of your community. With multilingual website interfaces and a growing catalog of Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and other non-English eBooks, you've uncovered a new and avid user base—and this is just the beginning. In addition, OverDrive Media Station, an in-library touchscreen monitor, promotes your digital collection to patrons visiting the library and allows them to browse, sample, and send a title link to their mobile device to check out. See how Toronto Public Library is using it. The success of OverDrive Read, the browser-based eBook reading platform that maximizes ease of use without installation of an app or Adobe activation, has helped us develop a roadmap for other media, including Streaming Video, which will soon be widely available to all of our library partners. We offer thousands of feature films, documentaries, TV shows, kids, and educational videos, and early next year, we will announce partnerships with Hollywood studios and networks. For the past few years, we embraced the opportunity to extend our services to young readers to help foster literacy and education. Now, serving thousands of schools across the globe, we work with educators and school librarians to help millions of students read inside and outside the classroom. This effort has launched improvements like enhanced metadata for grade levels, Accelerated Reader (ATOS), and Lexile scores. Your library can extend your reach to youth in a new way through the eReading Room for Kids and Teens (see the Kitsap Regional Library site). This provides a safe and kid-friendly environment to explore digital media. Please contact your Collection Development Specialist for more information. Looking forward We are expecting another record-breaking surge in traffic and demand for your digital collection this holiday. We have invested significant resources to provide robust, fast and efficient services for your readers and staff. We also provide numerous training and marketing resources in our Partner Portal. For 2014, OverDrive will continue to prioritize services and content models to help your library meet the anticipated continued demand for eBooks, audiobooks, and streaming video and to help stretch your budget. Each month, we plan to release time-saving conveniences for selectors, new reports and data on your digital library's performance, and self-service features to help you better manage your collection. And we will deliver access to more materials in more access models—allowing you to reach more users. To keep abreast of these updates, please make sure you and your staff have subscribed to our Library or School Blog (http://blogs.overdrive.com) and are on our email list through your Account Specialist. Thank you to our library and school partners Thank you for the privilege to work with your library and your staff. I am proud of the partnerships that began more than a decade ago, and I am energized for the opportunities that lay ahead. We enter 2014 with great promise. I constantly challenge our team to maximize the value we deliver to our partners, and with that important goal in mind, we will keep striving to earn our place in your library's digital services. I invite you to keep telling us what is working and what needs to be improved. Visit us at ALA Midwinter or PLA, or contact any member of my team anytime. Happy Holidays from all of us at OverDrive! Steve Potash, CEO OverDrive

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