OverDrive provides your school with a “school download library,” a branded website that allows students 24/7 online access to a digital collection of eBooks and audiobooks that your school selects from a vast catalog of tens of thousands of titles. Students browse your collection and check out titles online, and download to enjoy offline. Students can download titles to a personal PC and Mac®, and transfer to MP3 players, eBook readers, and other portable devices. We also now offer apps for direct download to Android™ phones and tablets, iPhone®, iPad®, BlackBerry®, and Windows® Phone.
OverDrive provides free real-time, custom reports permitting school personnel to track usage of the collection.
OverDrive provides free support services to ensure that your staff is well acquainted with your School Download Library. We provide staff training via web conferencing in a number of topic areas, collection development assistance and promotional/marketing support. Simply call your account manager for more information.
OverDrive asks that trained staff members from your school provide primary support to your students. If your staff member is unable to resolve the student’s issue, OverDrive will provide secondary support at no additional expense. Our award-winning support team will work directly with your staff member to help resolve the student’s issue.
From OverDrive’s vast catalog of more than 500,000 titles for public libraries, OverDrive offers more than 100,000 eBooks and 30,000 audiobooks for children and young adults. This K-12 catalog covers virtually all subjects and includes popular and educational titles. Plus, we add titles daily.
OverDrive allows your school to create its own custom digital collection. Your team will be able to browse OverDrive’s extensive catalog of eBooks, audiobooks, music, and video and select titles based on your school’s collection development goals.
Most OverDrive titles are circulated based on a one-copy/one-user lending model similar to the way physical books are loaned from your school library. If your custom digital collection contains one copy of a specific title, then only one student can check out that specific title at a time; if it contains more than one copy, then that number of students can check out that title (same as physical). We also offer a model called Maximum Access, which allows titles from some publishers to be offered for unlimited simultaneous use.
Only titles purchased from OverDrive are licensed to be included in your OverDrive collection. You may upload proprietary content (e.g., lesson plans, podcasts, audio or video recordings, etc.) to your collection.
You must subscribe to an OverDrive-powered service to provide OverDrive’s titles.
You can browse OverDrive’s catalog at http://search.overdrive.com.
OverDrive offers a variety of popular and educational eBooks and audiobooks in our catalog. Currently school textbooks are not available to purchase for your digital collection. OverDrive continues to work with publishers to try and provide as many titles as possible in digital formats.
OverDrive offers easy-to-purchase preselected packages of titles for K-12 schools. OverDrive’s Collection Development Team can also create for your school custom packages of titles based on your school’s specific collection development goals.
OverDrive has partnered with OCLC to provide MARC records for our titles. MARC records are purchased through and delivered by OCLC for $1.50 per title.
OverDrive sends out a weekly email newsletter called ContentWire to update our school library partners on new titles that are available in our catalog.
An eBook is the digital version of a printed book (text on a screen) and an audiobook is the spoken word digital recording of a book.
Your school will determine the number of titles a student can check out at a time.
At the end of the lending period, titles will automatically ‘expire’ and return to the collection. OverDrive’s eBooks can be returned early, but audiobooks cannot.
Titles cannot be renewed, but the student can check them out again if they are available.
The lending period is determined by your school and can be for a period of 7, 14, or 21 days. Your school can set different lending periods for each type of digital book.
If all copies of a title are checked out of your digital collection, other students may place a hold on this title. The number of titles that a student may place holds on is determined by your school.
To place a hold, your student can select the ‘place a hold’ link and enter his or her library card or student ID number. When the title becomes available for checkout, the student will receive an email with instructions. The item will be held for a number of days, determined by your school, after the student receives email notice that the title is available. If he or she does not check out the item during that period of time, the student will forfeit his or her turn and the next student in line will be notified, or it will be returned to the digital collection.
If your school has a one-to-one laptop/tablet program (that is, personal computers assigned to individual students) or allows students to bring in their personal computers, then students can download eBooks and audiobooks to their assigned personal laptop/tablet. Students cannot download eBooks and audiobooks to shared computers within the school, for example, as in a media center. If your school does not have a one-to-one laptop/tablet program, students can still download audiobook titles at school with the use of the OverDrive Download Station software, and transfer them to a MP3 player or other portable audio device.
To use OverDrive’s titles, your students will need to install two free software applications on their computers; the OverDrive Media Console (for audiobooks, music and video) and Adobe Digital Editions (for eBooks). For Android phones and tablets, iPhone and iPad, BlackBerry, and Windows Phones, just OverDrive Media Console (audiobooks and eBooks).
All eBook titles allow students to place bookmarks and make notes. Printing and copy/paste are permissions that are set by the publisher and varies by title. Many titles (especially study aids) do have the ability to print pages and copy/paste text.
Students can read eBooks on a variety of devices, including PC and Mac® computers, the Apple iPhone®, iPad®, and iPod® touch, Android™, and many eBook readers such as Sony® Reader, Barnes & Noble NOOK™, Kobo eReader, and Amazon® Kindle® (US schools and libraries only). To view a full list of compatible devices, visit our Device Resource Center.
Yes. Nearly all OverDrive audiobooks can be transferred to an iPod/iPhone/iPad. eBooks in the EPUB format can be downloaded directly to iPhone and iPad (as well as Android phones and tablets, BlackBerry, and Windows Phones).
Yes. OverDrive has created apps to use eBooks and audiobooks on Android™, Blackberry®, iPhone®, iPad™ and Windows® Phone.
Yes. About 50 percent of our audiobook tiles can be burned to a CD.
OverDrive authenticates your students through their student ID or library card number, not by IP address.
OverDrive can send authentication requests to your existing integrated library system database via SIP2, RPA, XML, EZProxy, or similar protocol (additional costs may apply). If none of these options are suitable, we can also authenticate your students with an OverDrive-developed tool called Library Card Manager.
Library Card Manager is an OverDrive-powered authentication system that allows your school to upload a list of library card or student ID numbers. Library Card Manager is included free with the School Download Library service.
Yes. Your school can place restrictions on younger students’ cards/ID numbers so they cannot checkout titles that may be inappropriate for them.
OverDrive can directly integrate School Download Library with your Sirsi-Dynix library system via RPA or SIP2 protocol.
OverDrive cannot directly integrate School Download Library with your Follett Destiny library system. However, your school can still offer eBook and audiobook downloads through OverDrive’s Library Card Manager at no additional expense.
Pricing for the School Download Library service starts at just $4,000 per year (including $2,000 worth of eBooks and/or audiobooks) for an individual school or a district of up to 2,000 students. For pricing for a larger district, please contact the OverDrive Sales Team at 216-573-6886 Ext. 4, or sales@overdrive.com.
The annual service fee includes an annual collection credit, funds on account with OverDrive, which is used to purchase titles for your digital collection. Yes, your school can make a one-time addition to your collection credit or budget additional funding annually.
You would be able to purchase approximately 150-200 eBooks.
Titles start as low as $1 with eBooks averaging around $12 and audiobooks around $35 per title. When you purchase a title, it remains in your digital collection for as long as you continue the service. One exception covers titles from HarperCollins, which now have checkout limits.
Yes, your school’s purchases are tax free.
We can remove a title from your catalog upon request. However, you will not be reimbursed for that title.
Should you discontinue the service you will no longer have access to the titles you have purchased.
OverDrive provides free real-time, custom reports permitting school personnel to track usage of the collection.
