Overdrive recently announced that their ebooks will now work on both the Borders Kobo eReader and the Pandigital Novel.

Kobo eReader

Pandigital Novel

If you’ve been thinking about buying an ereader for yourself, Overdrive lists all of the devices they support – which means you’ll have access to all of the ebooks available through the Chelmsford Library. We also have a list of other places you can download ebooks.

And remember, Overdrive has downloadable audiobooks too!

These ebooks are in the Adobe EPUB format, and work with many ereader devices, including the Barnes and Noble Nook and Sony eReader – they are not compatible with the Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad.

Anyone with a valid MVLC library card can visit http://mvlc.lib.overdrive.com to start browsing. We’re starting with a small ebook collection, but will continue to add titles.

Searching for ebooks works the same as searching for audiobooks, but you will need to download and install the free Adobe Digital Editions software. Overdrive provides instructions for getting started, and offers a great video guided tour of using our Overdrive library. We also have an introductory brochure [pdf] that gives tips on using Overdrive.

In addition to Overdrive, our Reading Room page lists other places from which Chelmsford residents can download free ebooks (including some Kindle resources).

If you’re still considering purchasing an ebook reader, here are resources to help you evaluate which device would work best for you:

• News and Advice from Consumer Reports
• Reviews from c|net
• Reviews from PC Magazine
• Reviews from Wired Magazine
• Privacy information from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy and privacy comparison charts of the top models

For over a year, the Library has offered downloadable audiobooks through our Overdrive subscription, which we share with other MVLC libraries. However, until now, these audiobooks were only available to people with Windows-based computers, and they could not be played on iPods.

But now, we’re very happy to offer audiobooks in MP3 format, which is compatible with iPods and many other popular MP3 players and cell phones. Also, Overdrive has released a new version of the Media Console that runs on Mac computers.

Searching for and downloading the new MP3 format audiobooks is the same as the previous formats, so if you’ve used Overdrive before you should have no problem. The format of the audiobook is displayed in each audiobook’s search record (displayed below), along with what kind of devices on which that audiobook can be played.

If you’d like more information about using the new MP3 audiobooks, check out the Dec. 2008 issue of the MVLC newsletter [pdf]. If you have questions about MP3 audiobooks or need assistance using Overdrive, please contact the Reference Desk.

• Books are now checked out for 14 days (instead of just 7)
• Patrons can now check out up to 5 items at a time (instead of just 3)

The rest of our downloadable audio book policies have not changed. You can browse for and download these books from http://mvlc.lib.overdrive.com.

For assistance with searching or downloading audio books from Overdrive, please contact the Reference Desk.

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