Week 9, Thing 22

Although we have had eBooks in our system for quite awhile, we, to my knowledge, have never been offered any instruction concerning their use. Therefore, I was eager to learn about them as well as the downloadable audio books. However, in no way would I label this exercise as part of "a fun week", due in part, I'm sure, to the computers that we use.

First of all, the "Overdrive Digital Media Guided Tour" would not download on 1 of our 2 computers, and it could only be viewed without sound on the other. After waiting for 40 minutes for "Introduction to NetLibrary" to load, I gave up, although my co-worker was eventually able to view (not hear) it on the 2nd computer. "Project Gutenberg" is cumbersome and not very exciting, but at least I could view and explore it fairly easily. I also checked our "World eBook Fair", but I personally would not subscribe to it.

After much wasted time and frustration, I was determined to gain some understanding of "Maryland's Digital eLibrary Consortium" (Maryland OverDrive) because that is the one that is available to our patrons. Therefore, I went through all of the steps and checked out a book. I checked the titles of the downloadable videos, and I did not see anything that really interested me. I do feel that I now at least have a little knowledge about the whole process, if not a complete understanding. I would probably not read a book online, and I would not use the videos which are currently available. However, I do think that the downloadable audio books are good for some of our patrons who regularly check out those that we have on our shelves.