Dear Library Partner,

This issue of Digital Dispatch is filled with exciting announcements, reviews, and your success stories. Enjoy!

Please feel free to forward this onto your friends and colleagues.

The Digital Bookmobile, a fully-equipped download experience for libraries, launched its national tour with the New York Public Library in Central Park on August 10. Since the kick off, the 74-foot, 18-wheel tractor trailer has been making its way along the eastern United States, visiting Boston Public Library, D.C. Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, Ramapo Catskill Library System, and many others.

The community events have attracted thousands of patrons; engaging readers of all ages with download audiobooks, eBooks, music, and video. The outreach has also attracted local and national media. Television stations, newspapers, and publications are visiting the Bookmobile events to learn more about the download service offered to residents in their communities.

In fact, after hundreds of Bostonians experienced the high-tech vehicle, the event was featured in the Boston Globe. The library witnessed their highest number of per day checkouts and unique users in the days following, and is continuing to grow steadily.

The Digital Bookmobile continues its tour in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and other eastern and Midwest states during the fall.

To learn more about the Digital Bookmobile, view photos and videos from past events, and see a schedule of upcoming stops, visit www.digitalbookmobile.com.

The following five features will soon be available at your digital library website. Within the next few months, your patrons can enjoy the upgrades to your service that will make their experience even better.

Imagine browsing through hundreds of great titles and trying to remember which ones you'd like to check out. Not anymore. Your patrons will be able to add titles to their 'Wish List'. Anytime a user visits your digital library, they can access a list of titles they added to their 'Wish List'. Titles will remain in the 'Wish List' until the patron removes them.

If a patron changes their email address during the waiting time for a title, they will have the option to update it in their Digital Library account. Patrons can edit their email address in My Account > My Holds.

Displaying 'Also Recommended Titles'

When a patron is viewing a title details page, they will see a new section labeled 'If you like this title, then you might also like.'. The titles chosen for display are those that have Creator(s) and/or Imprint and/or Publisher and/or Keywords in common with the title on the page the user is viewing.

Search by awards, and display of awards on title details pages

Currently, you can search Content Reserve by more than 60 awards. Soon, your patrons will be able to search on these awards from your Advanced Search page. Additionally, if a title has received an award, this is displayed on the title details page. The award is shown as a hyperlink; users can simply click this link to view a list of titles that have received the same award. Some notable awards include Newbery Medal, PEN/Faulkner Award, Audie Awards, Best Books for Young Adults, Edgar Allan Poe Award, and Nebula Award.

The quick search at your Virtual Branch will be updated to support full text searching. This increases response times, and also allows users to search more metadata fields than before. Full text searching queries the Title, Publisher, Creator, ISBN, Subject, and Publisher-supplied Keyword fields of Content Reserve, as well as some MARC record data (Control Number and Library of Congress subject headings). With full text searching, a user can search on multiple terms, and the search results will be ranked by relevance.

Just west of St. Louis, Missouri, you'll find the St. Charles City-County Library District. Twelve branches circulate nearly 6.4 million items annually, making it the third busiest library system in Missouri.

Always looking for new ways to serve the community, SCCCLD launched their Virtual Branch website, featuring OverDrive WMA Audiobooks, in February 2008. To promote the new service, the library district focused on three target audiences.

First, SCCCLD reached customers who called the library using "On Hold Messaging". When a customer called the library and was placed on hold, they would hear the following recording:

"...Beginning February 1, our St. Charles City-County Library District has a new FREE digital library service that allows cardholders to browse popular audiobooks for checkout and download on their MP3 player or computer. The new online collection for adults, teens, and kids is available 24/7 from anywhere in the world. Simply click the e-Media button on the library website, youranswerplace.org. And there's never any late fees because the audiobooks automatically check themselves back in at the end of the loan period."

Nearly two million customers visit their branches each year so the library district printed 39" x 60" posters which are shared between branches and placed in the libraries. As you can imagine, a poster of this size stands out at library events like, Storytime, Book Discussion Club, and Movie Night.

Recent OverDrive survey results show that a majority of Virtual Branch website visitors rarely use the physical library. The convenience of 24/7 online access to popular books attracts an entire new audience. Therefore, SCCCLD knew it was important to connect with community residents who may not visit or call the library. To do so, they issued a press release and contacted seven media outlets, including the St. Louis Post and two radio stations. In the days following the press release distribution, 71 new patrons checked out digital materials.

"We have seen great success with our digital service through on-going promotion and engaging with customers in a variety of venues in the library and in the community," says Maggie Preiss, Children's Resources and Marketing.

The variety and uniqueness of SCCCLD's marketing campaign accounted for more than 200 checkouts in its opening week, and nearly 100 users. As a result of the committed staff and continuous promotion, SCCCLD circulates more than 1,500 digital titles each month.and growing.

SCCLD will host the Digital Bookmobile on October 12.

Team OverDrive would like to give a special thanks to all who attended Digipalooza '08. OverDrive's 2nd International user group conference was a huge success, welcoming more than 275 librarians and publishers to Cleveland, Ohio.

Throughout the July weekend, librarians from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico shared their knowledge, ideas, and experiences providing digital media to patrons. Leading library staff from County of Los Angeles Public Library (CA), Delaware County Library System (PA), Michigan Library Consortium (MI), Lee County Library System (FL), D.C. Public Library, and many others, presented real statistics, successful marketing campaigns, best practices for collection development, and experiences of opening up to the world of iPod users with OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks, to hundreds of enthusiastic attendees.

After business concluded, Digipalooza-goers rocked the city of Cleveland, cheering on the Cleveland Indians to a win over the Minnesota Twins, touring the famous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and dancing to favorite tunes from Donnie Iris and the Cruisers at the historic House of Blues.

Digipalooza '08 received high reviews with 100% recommendation for future Digipalooza conferences. To learn more about Digipalooza, see pictures and more, visit www.digipalooza.com.

Affordable, style, and space are three words to best describe the latest addition to Creative's product line, the ZEN Mozaic.

Offered in 2 GB, 4 GB, 8GB, and 16 GB, and compatible with both WMA and MP3 files, the Mozaic is perfect for listening to OverDrive Audiobooks and Music. The player provides user-friendly navigation features including bookmarking, which makes it easy to switch between your audio and music titles, without losing your place. The Mozaic allows for quick file transfers using the OverDrive Media Console Transfer Wizard.

Available in black, pink, and silver, this media player features a one-of-a-kind mosaic type keyboard, vivid 1.8 inch color display screen, and built in speakers. In addition, the Mozaic offers an external storage device where you can house important files and documents.

This lightweight device is power-packed with a built in re-chargeable battery and 32 hours of continuous audio playback. An integrated FM radio, alarm clock, and time zone setting features are also included.

Starting at $59.99 (2GB), this device is an easy choice for non-stop entertainment on the go. For more information on features, specifications, and accessories, click here.

Moore's first book, We Were Soldiers Once.and Young, (eventually made into a movie starring Mel Gibson) captivated me, as he told the story of soldiers who fought bravely in a dire situation; his second book, We are Soldiers Still, was just as fascinating.

As a history major in college, particularly interested in 20th century American history, I marveled at the personal accounts of people that live through such traumatic events as the Vietnam War. We are Soldiers Still, is the story of ten American veterans who travel back to the Ia Drang Valley to visit the battlefields that they once fought on. Throughout the book, they are forced to confront the ghosts of their past and relive the details of the days they so bravely fought. As they remember the horrifying details of the Vietnam War, Moore is able to put the reader into the boots of the frightened American soldiers who went into battle in an unknown land.

I would recommend this title to anyone who enjoys reading about personal experiences in history or who has lived through the Vietnam War era.

When I first read Snow Crash in the early nineties, most of the core technologies Neil Stephenson described were still in the realm of science fiction. Now, the Metaverse - a massive, virtual world that users visit using custom 3D avatars - not only exists, but in fact took its name and inspiration from Stephenson's novel. Even so, the story is still engaging enough to warrant a second read.

Snow Crash has two protagonists: a young street courier named YT who spends most of her time making deliveries for Uncle Enzo's Costa Nostra Inc.; and the appropriately name Hiro Protagonist - hacker, concert promoter, and swordfighter extraordinaire. Together, they must uncover the source of a dangerous software virus that not only infects computers, but wipes out the user's own memory as well. Along the way they are helped (or hindered) by Uncle Enzo's mafia; a psychotic killer named Raven who has a nuclear warhead mounted in the sidecar of his Harley; and L. Bob Rife, a cable and fiber optic magnate that runs his telecommunications empire from the salvaged aircraft carrier he uses as a mobile headquarters.

I would recommend this title to anyone who enjoys science fiction / cyberpunk fiction, as well as those that enjoy dystopian novels such as Brave New World, 1984, and Player Piano.

Would you like to add these titles to your collection? Visit Content Reserve or contact our Collection Development Team, collectionteam@overdrive.com.

Please note: Content featured in Digital Dispatch may vary by geographical location.