12 days of tech tips: OverDrive apps deliver (free) library ebooks and audiobooks

If your holiday travels are taking yous over some rivers and through some forest this year, y'all're going to want a good volume to keep yous visitor. What'south the best kind of book? Why, a gratuitous book, of course.

That's only what you get at the library, right? But library books are frequently, well … trounce upward and disgusting (y'all know some random guy read that book on the toilet). And you have to, you know, actually become to the library to get and return them.

Merely ebooks and audiobooks are a whole different story. If you live in a metropolis, suburb or another area with a local library, there is a dandy take chances that it offers some sort of digital itemize. And if your library offers digital books, the OverDrive for Windows 10 app could be your gateway to a seemingly endless selection. The app is also available for macOS, iOS, Android and Chrome, and it syncs across devices.

Seriously, if you're a reader and you lot don't utilise OverDrive, y'all are getting left out in the cold. And so, come on in, where it'south warm …

See at Microsoft Store
Run into on the App Store
Come across on Google Play
Run across OverDrive for Chrome

Getting started with OverDrive for Windows x

First things outset, you need an account at your local library, and yous demand admission to the digital catalog. This usually requires visiting the library in person to create an account, or confirm your existing one, and to get a countersign or PIN to access its digital drove. When I setup my business relationship at the Boston Public Library a few years agone, information technology took less than five minutes to get upwards and running. This is also an easy style to figure out if your library has a catalog that's available via OverDrive.

Once you have a library business relationship number and login password (yous use your business relationship numbers as a user name), you download the app on your platform of choice, search for your library when prompted, select the proper location, enter your credentials, and you lot're good to go. It'due south literally that elementary.

You'll also want to download Amazon's Kindle app for Windows (or another platform), because that's the easiest way to download and read ebooks. Not all books are bachelor in Kindle format, so you may demand to read them in a browser windows or another compatible ebook app. But I've been using OverDrive for virtually two years, and I'd say more than 95 percent of the books I've requested were available equally Kindle downloads. And I read a lot. Fifty-fifty if you lot don't ever want to buy a Kindle book from Amazon, yous can nevertheless download the app, create an Amazon account if y'all don't already have one, and then but use it to read library ebooks.

Meet Kindle for Windows on Amazon

Of course, like real library books, you sometimes have to wait for books to become available. Your library only has admission to a ready amount of digital copies of a book, so if all of those copies are checked out by other members, you have to wait until 1 is free.

OverDrive for iOS

Each library's catalog of digital books varies, but if your library doesn't take a book you want, yous can asking that information technology buy the rights to it, right from OverDrive. If enough people asking that title, the library will likely purchase information technology. Over again, I tin't speak for every library, simply the Boston Public Library is cracking about buying new titles I recommend.

What about OverDrive audiobooks?

In addition to ebooks, your library may offer a digital collection of audiobooks, and it's fifty-fifty easier to access and listen to them, because y'all don't accept to download a carve up app or open a browser, in most cases.

Just search for a specific book, or scan the catalog for one. Books are clearly marked as either ebooks or audiobooks. When you find a book you lot want to listen to, assuming it'southward available, you just click to add together it to your loans page, jump over to that page, and hitting the play button. That'due south information technology.

So go ahead, give the gift of noesis, imagination, and escapism via free ebooks this twelvemonth, whether it's for yourself, a loved i or a friend. Complimentary ebooks are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

If you determine to give OverDrive a try — and you'd exist a fool not to — let us know what you call up in the comments.

See at Microsoft Store
Encounter on the App Store
See on Google Play
See OverDrive for Chrome

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