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Off the Shelf: Executive Board for WVDELI Headed to Bridgeport to Discuss Most Popular Services.

By Sharon Saye on March 22, 2017 from Off the Shelf via Connect-Bridgeport.com

The Executive Board of the WVDELI (West Virginia Digital Entertainment Library Initiative) will meet in Bridgeport in April to discuss some of its very popular services.  The DELI consists of consortia of ten members: Bridgeport Public Library, Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, Morgantown Public Library, Marion County Public Library, Ohio County Public Library, South Charleston Public Library, Kanawha County Public Library, Mary H. Weir Public Library, Fayette County Public Library, Glenville State College Library and Fairmont State University Library.
          
The consortia was established in 2008 with six members in the following years grew to include eleven members.  The purpose of the consortia was to provide downloadable materials to patrons including audiobooks, eBooks, video and music.  Each library pledges to spend $10,000 per year on content which is available to all cardholders of the ten libraries 24/7.  So far the WVDELI has over 60,000 items and the members have spent just over $1,600,000 on content.  Members of the WVDELI have already spent just under $300,000 in content for fiscal year 2016-2017 and circulation is just over 288,000 items for the fiscal year.  In fact, circulation hit a record high in January and is on track to meet that this March.  This size collection and circulation would never be possible for an individual library.
           
The platform is provided by Overdrive, a leading multichannel digital distributor of eBooks, digital audiobooks, music and video.  It can be found in 22,000 libraries, schools and retailers worldwide with support for all major computers and devices, including iPhone, Nook, Android phones, tablets and Kindle (U.S. only.)
           
This level of success presents problems.  The amount of time users have to wait on an item has doubled.  Purchasing additional copies also presents a problem since many publishers set high prices on their eBooks such as $84.00 and $60.00 even though the price of a physical book is $25.95 or $7.95.  Others limit number of circulations or ownership periods.  One of the solutions is to limit circulation periods to 14 days instead of 21 days.  Another problem that has arisen is the number of users who have cards at multiple local libraries and are placing multiple holds.  All these issues will be discussed at the next Executive Board meeting as well as the renewal of our magazine download service Zinio which is purchased through the WVDELI to maximize the number of magazines and reduce the costs.
           
For all those users of the library’s electronic services, the library has been offering an eReader workshop to clarify some issues and explain changes.  We are expanding that service to twice a month.  In April, they are scheduled on April 5th and April 18th at 2 p.m.



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