OverDrive Digital "Checkouts" Jumped 76% in 2008
-- Publishers Weekly, 1/6/2009 8:42:00 AM
OverDrive reported that it registered approximately 5.3 million checkouts of digital material from the 8,500 libraries that used its service in 2008, a 76% increase over the 3 million checkouts in 2007. The OverDrive digital service offers downloads of audiobooks, e-books, music and video from a single platform. The addition of more publishers (including Penguin, Random House and Simon & Schuster) to the service as well as the launch of MP3 and Mac formats were cited as major factors in the increase in usage. OverDrive added 50,000 e-books, 10,000 audiobooks and 5,000 music and video titles in 2008, bringing its digital catalogue to 150,000 titles.
During the year, Stephenie Meyer was the most downloaded author at libraries with her Twilight the most downloaded audiobook as well as the most downloaded e-book through OverDrive libraries. Meyer’s Eclipse and New Moon were the second and third most downloaded e-books followed by two Lisa Kleypas titles--Devil in Winter and Because You’re Mine. On the audiobook side, New Moon and Eclipse came in at third and fourth place, respectively, with John Grisham’s The Appeal in the second spot, while James Patterson’s 7th Heaven came in fifth.
