With 1.3 million checkouts in 2012, the King County Library System in Washington led digital library checkouts through OverDrive last year.  Moreton Bay Libraries in Australia recorded the fastest growth out of all OverDrive libraries–464 percent growth during a busy year.

The library lending company highlighted the top libraries in a fascinating list today, revealing that New York Public Library patrons checked out 1.1 million books during the same period.  Here’s more from the release:

During 2012, hundreds of millions of online visitors turned to their libraries’ OverDrive-powered eBook catalogs to browse, sample, and gather recommendations for what to read next. These readers generated over 2.7 billion page views at 22,000 libraries and schools across the OverDrive network … Lending leaders recognized in this report reflect 2012 “checkout” data for standalone library systems (versus consortia), and growth is based on the rise in lending from 2011 to 2012.

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Microsoft’s new operating is officially launching today, and the first native apps are being announced in anticipation of the moment when consumers get it in their hot little hands.

Amazon has jut sent out a press release announcing a new Kindle app which has been customized just for Windows 8. The new app gives readers access to Amazon’s selection of over 1,500,000 ebooks, including over 200,000 exclusive titles found in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library. Customers can read Kindle books on any Kindle app, device, or even the Kindle Fire, as well as in web browsers with Kindle Cloud Reader.

But Amazon’s not the only ebook provider with a new app.

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OverDrive is now distributing Harry Potter ebooks to its 18 thousand member libraries, but that’s not their only news this week. They’ve just pushed out an update for the OverDrive Media Console app for iPhone and iPad.

The update is  few weeks late but it’s worth the wait.  It adds a key feature that a lot of us need in eBooks: dictionary. You can now look up words in the eBooks you checkout from the library. Just tap a word with your finger to find the definition. You can also navigate to the corresponding Wikipedia page for more information.

The OverDrive Media Console app is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and PC. It reads Epub as well as audiobooks checked out from OverDrive’s partner libraries

iTunes

It looks like someone might be concerned about all the attention that OverDrive has been getting ever since they announced the imminent arrival of HP eBooks last month. The eBooks aren’t due to hit libraries until the end of April, but some libraries are already taking requests for waiting lists as well as pre-ordering their copies.

Here’s the message that OverDrive posted on their website:

We’re excited about the forthcoming launch of Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks for library lending. We’re working with Pottermore to introduce this compelling series, and as part of the process of coordinating launch plans with Pottermore, we have temporarily suspended pre-sales and display of these titles at library websites. This is only a postponement, and libraries will soon be able to resume pre-ordering the titles in preparation for launch in April.

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding. We’ll keep you posted as the process unfolds.

This is a curious turn of events, but I suspect it is due to a technical issue. I bet OD’s servers were beginning to get bogged down by the requests for info about the eBooks.

Harry Potter is incredibly popular, even years after the last book was published. In fact, Pottermore managed to hit a million users in under a week back when it launched into beta in the summer of 2011.

It seems likely that OverDrive is simply pulling the eBooks now so they have time to make sure their servers can handle the load on the day that they are finally available to checkout.

OverDrive is in the middle of rolling out a series of updates to its apps, and they will be adding a couple useful features.

The updated apps now allow patrons to return audiobooks early, a feature which had only worked with eBooks before. The new apps also have  new dictionary lookup feature, and users can search for terms in Wikipedia.

The OverDrive Media Console apps let patrons download eBooks and audiobooks from over 18 thousand partner libraries. Apps are available for Windows, OSX, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, Android, and the iPad.

The new abilities are already available in the Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7 apps, and the iPad/iPhone apps will be getting the updates in the next few weeks.

OverDrive

OverDrive has just released its activity  stats for the yer 2011, and they’re doing even better than some publishers. Twice as many people visited their digital library in 2011 as in 2010, and they viewed over 1.6 billion eBook listings.

Over 35 million titles were checked out in 2011, with another 17 million placed on hold. All this activity is drawn from the OverDrive catalog for libraries, which now includes 700 thousand copyrighted eBook, audiobook, and media titles in over 50 languages, with 300,000 titles added in 2011.

App users (Android, iOS, Windows) nearly doubled in 2011 (6 million to 11 million), and now account for 22% of all checkouts. The other 78% are spread cross a diverse group of devices, including the Sony Reader, Kindle, Nook, and others.

Unfortunately, I am not sure that OverDrive will have similar success in the coming year. Publishers re growing increasingly hostile to OverDrive. Only yesterday Penguin decided to stop distributing audiobooks to OD. Late last year Penguin also decided to withdraw their eBooks, and they were not the first. A couple other major publishers won’t allow library eBooks, either (Hatchette, S&S).

Overdrive announced this morning that it was expanding its support for free downloads from Project Gutenberg.

Member libraries in US, Canada, Australia and as of today New Zealand can offer their patrons any of 24 thousand eBooks that have been digitized and uploaded to Project Gutenberg. The eBooks are available through the same checkout service as OverDrive supplied eBooks, and they do not expire. The titles are always available for as many patrons that want them and can be read on Epub compatible devices, such as computers, mobile devices and eReaders.

Overdrive has more details: “The free access to these titles will expand and improve ‘Virtual Branch’ websites by making tens of thousands of EPUB eBooks immediately available without waitlists or holds.  Patrons will always be able to find favorite eBook titles to download from the library that won’t expire or count against their checkout limit.  Plus, library partners will be thrilled because these titles do count toward their circulation.”

Does your local library support OverDrive eBooks? If you’re not sure, uou can search OverDrive to find out (here).

Have you ever been on a long waiting list for an eBook and then decided to buy the eBook instead? OverDrive plans to launch a new program to make that easier.

OverDrive is in Frankfurt this week for the Frankfurt Book Fair. That’s where they’ll be meeting with independent publishers and booksellers to share details about its new WIN Catalog. Win stands for Want It Now, and it’s part of OverDrive’s new push to expand the options open to libraries.

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Have you ever  had to wait to read a library eBook only to learn that it was a disappointment? OverDrive can help you with that.

As part of its general move to improve service and add more features, yesterday OverDrive launched a new sample option. Patrons will now see a new button when they look for eBooks. If a given title offers a sample, the patrons will be able to click the button and download an excerpt of about 10% of the eBook.

OverDrive clearly had the best of intentions, but it is just as clear that no one put any thought in to this.

Unfortunately, the several samples I found at my library were all taken from the first 10% of a book. Given that all the eBooks came with a TOC, intro, and other front matter, there was actually very little story in any of the samples. In fact, 2 of the samples had no story at all – just the front matter. I don’t know what these eBooks are about, so the samples were pretty much useless.

The Library of Congress will be hosting the National Book Festival this weekend in Washington DC. This is the eleventh time that the LOC has held the event, and like past years it will be occupying a sizable part of the National Mall this weekend.

Booths, pavilions, and attractions will be stretched from 7th St to 14 St. Each of the pavilions will focus on a particular interest, like Contemporary Life, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Contemporary Life, or Poetry & Prose.

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