| With the many exciting new enhancements to your OverDrive service this year, including Next Generation digital library platform, OverDrive Read, Next Generation Content Reserve and more coming soon, there's no better time to add Recommend to Library to your OverDrive-powered website!
Recommend to Library has been a huge hit with library staff and users. It's a free, seamless, and customizable means of exposing tens of thousands of additional titles in the OverDrive catalog to engage users to discover, sample and recommend titles to your library. Users will begin searches within your library's digital collection. Then, they can choose to expand results to include titles not currently in your collection. When they find titles they want to recommend, users can choose to be notified or placed on the waiting list automatically if your library purchases the titles. In Content Reserve, library staff can limit the number of recommendations a user can make and tailor the Recommend to Library Manager located in the Select Express tab to meet purchasing needs.
To learn more about how libraries are benefiting from Recommend to Library, I spoke with Michelle Ross, the Virtual Branch Manager at Marion County Public Library System (West Virginia Downloadable Entertainment Library Initiative):
OverDrive: How has Recommend to Library enhanced the user experience on the Next Generation digital library website?
Ross: Our OverDrive consortium is made up with ten libraries, each with different people responsible for collection development. In the past, it has been difficult for patrons to figure out who to contact to make purchase requests. Some just wouldn’t bother because it seemed like a hassle; others weren’t even aware that they could make requests. The Recommend to Library feature not only makes our patrons aware that they can make purchase requests, it also makes the process easier for them.
OverDrive: How does Recommend to Library improve the ordering process for library staff in Next Generation Content Reserve?
Ross: Recommend to Library has improved the ordering process by enlightening library staff on what our patrons actually want to read, rather than what we think they want. Our Patron Recommendation carts provide specific titles, but they also give insight into which genres our patrons are interested in and current reading trends. Additionally, Patron Recommendation carts reduce the amount of staff time spent on collection development. Recommend to Library is a great tool.
For more information on Recommend to Library and to add it to your digital library website, contact your OverDrive Account Specialist today. You can find contact information specific to your account on the Support tab at Content Reserve.
Heather Valentine-Gold is an Account Specialist at OverDrive.
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Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Libraries Save Time with ‘Recommend to Library’ Service
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