Downloadable Books and Videos

By the time you are reading this the Library will be well on the way to implementing a new service allowing patrons to download digital books for either reading or listening.

This is a chance to respond to the changing demographics of our community and provide wider access to the Library. The explosion of transit oriented housing and the increase in juvenile circulation indicates a shift to a younger and busier population. This part of the population not only wants more immediacy in service delivery, they are much more comfortable with online activities. Checking out digital or audio books from the Library’s webpage, using your own computer, PDA or MP3 player, seems a good fit with this demographic. The Library can be closed or you can be on the far side of the planet (or home in your pajamas) the materials are available at any time.

This latter benefit—not having to come to the Library building—addresses a growing concern of the Library—the fact that there are still segments of our community that are not using or being reached by the traditional library approach.
Thus our goal is no longer simply to get bodies in the door to benefit from our services, it must also be to get patrons the materials they want or need when or where they need them.

A consortium of local libraries runs the service we are looking at and we can join for such a minimal cost that our current book budgets remain unaffected. Every digital or audio book circulated is, in effect, a second copy that makes the paper copy that much more available. Since the online collection is chosen by the participating local libraries the titles should be desirable to the Morton Grove population. And for those residents with a library card, the service is free.

Digital/audio books are now a well developed, mainstream, product that has proven valuable to many library communities around the country. The service makes sense economically and in terms of reaching out to an underserved and important population without negative impact on existing services or collections. This really is something that offers great promise and is worth a try.