Week 9, Thing 22: Learn about Audiobooks

I am not certain that I have actually established an Overdrive account or not. I linked to it from BCPL's website and was only asked to enter my Library's name and my barcode number from my library card. I guess for those who don't have library access to Overdrive, they might have to create a stand-alone account. Perhaps I'm wrong with that and the account factor would come in once you get to the download stage. (I can't remember) I'm not able to test that, as we are not allowed to download anything from Overdrive onto library-owned computers. However, using this method I was still able to look around at what Overdrive has to offer.

And what does Overdrive have to offer me? Near as I can tell... absolutely nothing. I tried searching keywords of topics about which I am interested in reading. Most of the time I was unable to locate a single book. Other times, I was able to locate one or two selections, that were on the right topic but not titles that interested me. So to answer the question in the Discovery Exercise #2: "Did you locate a title that you might want to try out and download?" The answer: no.

When BCPL subscribed to Overdrive, we all took a look at it. One nice thing is that it offers classics. This is a handy alternative for when a student comes into the library to get a copy of (well, I was going to say Things Fall Apart by Achebe, but Overdrive doesn't have that title) Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury and all of our copies are checked out... and of course they knew they needed to read it 2 months ago, but it's due tomorrow and now they are in a pinch... (you've heard the desperate story before... I know you have).

Personally, I do not want to read a book on a computer screen. Nor do I want to listen to a book from my computer. (I have an iPod... so using my MP3 player is out of the question) So, this format is not a big seller for me. And yes, I did try it. Downloading a book to a PDA and reading (at least part of it) was part of my LATI class. I didn't like that format. I guess I'm old fashioned when it comes to book reading. :)

So that brings me to the end... and 22 things down... 1 to go!