Listen Up! Downloadable Books Come to Southwest Virginia

About the Program

Category: Libraries (Best in Category)

Year: 2010

As a rural county of southwest Virginia, Montgomery County has a small population, is widely dispersed and is rather isolated from the rest of the state. The county budget is small and as a result the library system occasionally struggles to bring basic services to the residents. Many of the libraries have inadequate book budgets and have a difficult time maintaining current collections. Despite these challenges, library directors in Montgomery County still attempt with their best efforts to provide their patrons with the materials and services they expect to receive. Through a cooperative effort, Montgomery County libraries were able to pool together their resources and offer downloadable books as a new, hi tech service to citizens. Downloadable books are a service provided by OverDrive Digital Library Reserve and allow residents with library cards to download an audio book to a computer or MP3 player. The 10 directors of various libraries in southwest Virginia came together and selected over 150 titles to start the digital collection. Since the service was introduced in 2009, there has been a steady growth in usage. Each month, an average of 125 people sign up for the service, and 480 digital books are checked out. Currently, with a total of 710 titles in the collective database, the total number of checkouts is 6,363.