Online Tip of the Month

Online Tip of the Month

Introduction to the Broward County Library eBook Collection
Our Broward County Library collection of eBooks is growing -- to meet the various needs for expanded availability of our library resources. Unlike our books in print and our audiobooks in CD format that you browse or check out by visiting a library location during open hours and which you physically return to a library location, our books in electronic format (eBooks) are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The 24/7 availability is possible because the eBooks are presented in an electronic format and the entire eBook loan process is done electronically.

A totally electronic loan process means that our entire eBook collection is browsed online. It means that our eBooks are checked out online. It means that our eBooks are read or listened to electronically -- online or offline, depending from which of our two eBook sections you have borrowed the eBook. And it means that our eBooks are returned to our library collection electronically. A total electronic process , a format that also enables the use of electronic tools while using the eBooks -- computer tools such as search and sort, research options, the ability to craft and file electronic notes with your eBook favorites, and more.

Our eBook collection contains full-content, fiction and nonfiction eBooks; full-content eJournals; eAudiobooks; and reference resources, database content, and other resources. We have our eBooks shelved within two virtual sections: netLibrary and OverDrive. Each section has a different collection of eBooks; each section has a different way of electronically presenting its eBooks. The major difference is the presentation: netLibrary eBooks are viewed online, on-screen, while the OverDrive eBooks are viewed or listened to offline via a download to a computer system or device. The loan and check-out processes differ as well. Both sections of our eBook collection are available to use at no charge.

Our largest eBook section is netLibrary, the eBooks that are checked out and viewed online, on-screen. Our netLibrary section currently contains over 28,000 eBooks plus additional reference resources of

encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, handbooks, thesauri, and more. The strongest coverage is in business, health, history, literature, sociology, and religion. You can read our netLibrary eBooks on-screen from any public computer at any Broward County Library. And you can read our netLibrary eBooks online, on-screen from your home or any external computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is no loan period for a netLibrary eBook; if it is available for use, you can read it one interval of time after another interval of time, day after day.

The eBooks in our OverDrive section are checked out online but are viewed or listened to offline, via downloads to your computer system or device. The specific software that is required to download an OverDrive eBook to your computer system or device is accessed directly from the OverDrive home page, and the software, available in three formats, is provided at no charge. Our OverDrive section currently contains over 100 fiction eBooks, over 200 nonfiction eBooks, and over 700 eAudiobooks. You can browse these eBooks or conduct the entire check-out process for these eBooks externally, from any computer system or device that is equipped with the required software, at anytime -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also start the check-out process for an OverDrive eBook from a public computer at any Broward County Library, but you will need to delay the final step, the download, until you are at your computer system or device that has the download software. The loan period for an OverDrive eBook is typically 21 days.

As with most of our other library resources, when you check out eBooks you CHECK OUT BEING GREEN @ YOUR LIBRARY, reducing your ecological footprint by using less paper and sharing resources.

We have provided in the following .pdf file overviews of the netLibrary and OverDrive sections of our eBook collection as well as a duplication of this introduction – to allow for an easy print and reference of our information.

We have compiled the main informational points for quick reference, and hope you will find the information handy to use as you explore our Broward County Library eBook collection.

Click here to read more. (pdf, 205KB)