Library dropped Overdrive for 3M. You could be next!

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Their form letter says they think 3M is better because it gives them more control over their catalog to offer better trending books and newer releases with less wait-times.

Shorter wait times, I can believe, because there are few titles easily discovered by means other than a direct author/title search.

At the Brooklyn 3M collection, I just tried clicking on Advanced Search. The single search box is unchanged, with the only "Advanced" feature being the opportunity to click one of these:

Include books not in library
Books available to check out
Books owned by library

If you can afford $50 a year, I would join the Brooklyn library. They have both Overdrive and 3M.

I do occasionally read a 3M book. Twice, to my recollection, I have searched for a book within a couple days of release, and gotten it from Brooklyn's 3M collection immediately.

[Ocicat]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I am positively livid today. I just discovered that my library has unexpectedly and without warning or public input dropped Overdrive in favor of 3M! Ugh!

Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone use 3M that can offer any postive input to make me less depressed? Is there any reason to like 3M over Overdrive?

My library was one of the early adopters of ebooks. I had access to over 70,000 ebooks and one of the largest Overdrive libraries in the US. The library had the audacity to put out a public statement that says they thought very hard about their decision to drop Overdrive. They believe that 3M offers more choices and less wait times. They are very excited about their collection of 3500 books.

Seriously! We went from 70,000 books to 3,500 books. Bye bye Kindle or Sony/Nook borrowing and now you have to read via a tablet app. I can't find anything to borrow because the selection is so poor that anything decent has waits now. All of this is better how?

Did I mention how angry I am?

Yes, terribly upsetting!
Because we had too many books and prices kept going up we started to borrow all best sellers from Overdrive and like you would be lost w/o it.

I would look into buying a yearly membership from a big city library.
I vaguely remember a MR thread about libraries which sold cards to out-of-state people.

[dandelioncottage]

Is it possible for you to get a card for one (or more) of the other libraries in the consortium, so you can continue to use Overdrive? In my state, you can join any library for free, as long as you apply in person. You don't have to live in the area.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

The Overdrive library was a consortium for the greater metropolitan area. Although each member could purchase additional quantities of books such that your individual library catalog could have different quantities than the consortium. Now my suburb has decided to go out on their own so instead of millions who could access the system it is hundreds of thousands. Hard to say what that means to wait times without knowing how many people use either system.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ocicat

I vaguely remember a MR thread about libraries which sold cards to out-of-state people.

There's a small list in the OP of this thread.

[disconnected]

When Overdrive raised prices a few years ago a lot of libraries started looking for alternatives. I think the Kansas library system was one of the first to drop Overdrive; they use multiple ebook suppliers now. In the long run competition should be a good thing.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Shorter wait times, I can believe, because there are few titles easily discovered by means other than a direct author/title search.
At the Brooklyn 3M collection, I just tried clicking on Advanced Search. The single search box is unchanged, with the only "Advanced" feature being the opportunity to click one of these:
Include books not in library
Books available to check out
Books owned by library
If you can afford $50 a year, I would join the Brooklyn library. They have both Overdrive and 3M.
I do occasionally read a 3M book. Twice, to my recollection, I have searched for a book within a couple days of release, and gotten it from Brooklyn's 3M collection immediately.

Indeed. Their advanced search is awful.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by dandelioncottage

Is it possible for you to get a card for one (or more) of the other libraries in the consortium, so you can continue to use Overdrive? In my state, you can join any library for free, as long as you apply in person. You don't have to live in the area.

You are brilliant! You can't join any library in my state for free. However it turns out that part of my property tax does fund the county library district. Therefore I am able to join any library in the county for free. I had no idea!

Thus I am able to join all of the cities in the consortium. I am back on Overdrive now after signing up for a card with the city next door. Soooo relieved!

I had a wishlist of hundreds of books that I had compiled over years. I am so thankful that I kept a separate list that I periodically updated.

Beware! Your city could be next! Don't be complacent like me even if you live in a major city and your library has been with Overdrivs from the beginning!

I appreciate the ideas. Thanks to everyone! If anyone has any tips on how to use the 3M system better that would be great too. It will be interesting to see how fast my library grows their 3M system. I would much rather patronize my own suburb, but since my taxes also go towards the county system then I feel better.

[library addict]

I joined the neighboring town's library a few years ago because they had 3M and at the time were the only ones who could buy books from Penguin and its various imprints. But the selection at 3M vs Overdrive is not good. Or maybe their budget for digital books is just very low. They've only added 100 books so far this year.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Beware! Your city could be next! Don't be complacent like me even if you live in a major city and your library has been with Overdrivs from the beginning!

Maybe it is those early adopters that are those that are looking for alternatives first. The late arrivers joined Overdrive after it had been in place for quite a while - after the prices were raised to be more reasonable. Reasonable is probably the wrong word, maybe more sustainable. The big cities that started from the beginning could afford it, but they would feel the pain for raising prices much more.

Have to see if this is going to be a trend or not among the single city Overdrive libraries.

It is a good thing that you can still use Overdrive. Do you have the same catalogue, or is the Overdrive next door a smaller one for selection?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

If anyone has any tips on how to use the 3M system better that would be great too.

1. Searching through the downloadable 3M PC Cloud App is somewhat better than searching with your library's web link. The Advanced Filter has a couple more features, like searching by reader rating, but still is bad. A more helpful cloud feature appears when clicking on "Categories." This allows drill down to the point where you can see, for example, all books on the history of a particular country. In a collection of 3,500 titles, there will not be a lot!

2. This might be less a tip than a warning, but: When you reserve a book, they tell you the number of days until it becomes available. This estimate will be wildly inaccurate. Worse, for a long time, there was no email notification when the book become available, so it was almost impossible to pick up a reserve. One reason I mention this is that the two 3M collections I use started email notifications at different times. There could be a risk that a new collection won't have email configured.

3. Since you apparently will soon have several collections available to you, and if you often know the title of the book you want, look into this:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=187919

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Maybe it is those early adopters that are those that are looking for alternatives first. The late arrivers joined Overdrive after it had been in place for quite a while - after the prices were raised to be more reasonable. Reasonable is probably the wrong word, maybe more sustainable. The big cities that started from the beginning could afford it, but they would feel the pain for raising prices much more.
Have to see if this is going to be a trend or not among the single city Overdrive libraries.
It is a good thing that you can still use Overdrive. Do you have the same catalogue, or is the Overdrive next door a smaller one for selection?

I am back in the consortium so I have access to the full catalog again.

I wonder if this will be a future trend too. I found some statistics that suggest more than 90% of libraries use Overdrive. I found a lot articles yesterday that suggested librarians much prefer 3M. From a user perspective I find 3M to be worse even if they had a large catalog.

In general I think my city is very smart with spending money on services and well-managed. You could be right about early adopters searching for other alternatives. They could feel they are in a good financial position to be able to drop out off the consortium. There must have been some value from pooling together in a consortium versus being independent.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

1. Searching through the downloadable 3M PC Cloud App is somewhat better than searching with your library's web link. The Advanced Filter has a couple more features, like searching by reader rating, but still is bad. A more helpful cloud feature appears when clicking on "Categories." This allows drill down to the point where you can see, for example, all books on the history of a particular country. In a collection of 3,500 titles, there will not be a lot!
2. This might be less a tip than a warning, but: When you reserve a book, they tell you the number of days until it becomes available. This estimate will be wildly inaccurate. Worse, for a long time, there was no email notification when the book become available, so it was almost impossible to pick up a reserve. One reason I mention this is that the two 3M collections I use started email notifications at different times. There could be a risk that a new collection won't have email configured.
3. Since you apparently will soon have several collections available to you, and if you often know the title of the book you want, look into this:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=187919

Now I see there is arrow next to some subjects for a subcategory list. I am filtered by books available to borrow. This option is depressing because I can see that there are less than 10 books on the history of Europe, most of which I've read!

Is there a way to search on audiobooks and ebooks independently within the 3M app?

[Bookworm_Girl]

When you say the wait times on 3M are wildly inaccurate, do they trend a direction? Are they more likely to be longer or shorter than estimated? Thanks for all your tips.

[Catlady]

My library stopped adding Overdrive books earlier this year in favor of Axis 360. It basically ended my use of the library.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by Catlady

My library stopped adding Overdrive books earlier this year in favor of Axis 360. It basically ended my use of the library.

I have access to a state library (IL) in addition to my Overdrive consortium. I accidently put a book on hold that only had that option. I passed. That must be something pushed by the big publishers.