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I have a small library in my village of 7,000. It carries some books, but a large portion of the books I borrow come from other libraries in the system. If my library offered ebooks, I would have very few to choose from. Quite a few small cities and villages teamed up on Overdrive to offer ebooks. I would like it if my library, through their consortium, would figure out how to offer ebooks more cheaply than Overdrive, which I hear is expensive. But my library has enough trouble just maintaining its building, and I suspect other members are experiencing the same. If large metropolitan libraries are not seeing the value in not using Overdrive, my library won't, as well.
The one thing Overdrive is doing for my library is pushing up its numbers. I used to go onto the online catalogue and order books. I would pick them up at the library. But I had to pick them up within 4 days of arrival, and could only keep them 7-21 days. So I kind of went in fits and starts. Now, I have 3 library cards (mine, my husband's and my daughter's). That gives me 15 checkouts (only my husband reads ebooks, and I use the card to get him things as well). And I just about always use all 15 slots. And my husband and daughter never went to the library. So the numbers for ebooks show how much value the community is getting from the library. And it is better now than it was before Overdrive.
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