Effort bills itself as first global eBook club
The library WAGGIN Network, which includes Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, is promoting “Big Library Read,” a digital version of a traditional book club that begins Thursday and lasts through July 7.
Those who have a library card or student identification can borrow the eBook, “A Murder in Time,” a mystery by Julie McElwain in which a modern FBI agent goes back to the 1800s, by logging onto http://waggin.lib.overdrive.com.
The Big Library Read website touts that millions of people can access the book simultaneously through a local library card and connect millions of readers around the world “with the same eBook at the same time without any waiting lists or holds.”
It is a free program made possible through a partnership between the WAGGIN Network; its eBook vendor, OverDrive; and Pegasus Books, publisher of “A Murder in Time.” Overdrive selected the title based on a survey of more than 20,000 library users.
The WAGGIN Network is a shared, online catalog and consortium of 20 libraries in three counties. Libraries joining this past spring were Brownsville, Germantown-Masontown and Carnegie Free Library in Connellsville, all in Fayette County. WAGGIN gives residents access to more than 900,000 items.
Melinda Tanner, Washington County Library System district coordinator based at Citizens Library in Washington, said Tuesday, “It’s just a way for us to promote the eBook collection that we have, because some people don’t know about it. It’s more building awareness.
“Local (book) clubs may want to use the simultaneous download.”
A hot eBook bestseller can cost a library $85, so just as the lender has limited copies of a print edition, its access to eBooks is also finite, leading to waiting lists for popular titles. Overdrive waives the costs of multiple downloads during the “Big Library Read.”
While everyone is familiar with the concept of borrowing a library book, the eBook for smartphones, tablets and computers is a bit different.
“When we first started, people assumed everything in the library was available on eBook,” Tanner said. “We don’t have access to everything that’s out there. Overdrive doesn’t mirror our physical library collection.”
Tanner likened the Big Library Read to the “one book, one community” concept that started in Seattle in 1998. In this area, Allegheny County Library Association in 2003 chose Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” as its first community reading project.
WAGGIN began as Washington-Greene Greater Information Network in 2008, and Fayette libraries joined later. It has its own doggie mascot, “Fetch.” WAGGIN budgets $2,000 a month for access to the Overdrive collection, and its circulation for eBooks and eAudio books in 2015 was 38,815, Tanner said.