Listen up! BorrowBox eAudiobooks and eBooks are launching at Eastern Regional Libraries.

The most popular Australian and international eAudiobooks and eBooks are now available to our members through the BorrowBox library app. With the BorrowBox library app, you can browse, borrow and download bestselling titles by your favourite authors from the comfort of your living room or wherever you go.

Members can borrow 5 eAudiobooks and 5 eBooks at the same time for 3 weeks. If you run out of time you can renew the item as long as someone else hasn't requested it.

You can find the Apple app in the Apple Store and the Android app in the Google Play Store.

There are 600 eAudiobooks to choose from, including titles by Di Morrisey, Matthew Reilly, Peter Corris, Rosie Thomas and Andy Griffiths. With the eBooks there are 966 titles by authors such as Hilary Mantel, Veronica Roth, Jeffrey Archer and Michael Connelly.

If you can't find what you are looking for in our BorrowBox eLibrary make sure that you check out our Overdrive eLibrary -
also available to all members for free.

Happy eListening and eReading,

Paul.

Over 700 new eBooks on Overdrive

Pan Macmillan have finally entered the Overdrive fold here in Australia. This means that you now have access to the following popular authors in the eBook library:

Matthew Reilly
Di Morrissey
Andy Griffiths
Jeffrey Archer
John Marsden
Wilbur Smith
Lisa Scottoline

and so many more...... 710 new titles added to the eLibrary today! Login to Overdrive eLibrary.

Happy eReading, Paul

Tips for searching the eLibrary

We have just added the 27,000th title to the eLibrary which means that it's collection is now as large as those of our medium-sized branches such as Belgrave, Boronia and Ferntree Gully. It is sometimes a bit hard to find what you want to read when presented with such a large number of items to choose from so I thought it would be useful to give you a couple of strategies that may help.

1. If you want to see what has been recently added to the collection you can click on Advanced Search select the period you want to view from the drop down menu next to 'Added to site' and then click the blue 'Search' box.

2. If you are looking for books by a particular author or title you will get more accurate results by putting your search term in quotation marks.

3. If you find that you enjoy books on a certain topic or genre it is sometimes easier to find similar books by searching the eLibrary for books released by a particular publisher. Again you do this by going to  Advanced Search and then choosing the publisher from the drop down menu in the 'All publishers' box.

For instance if you are looking for Gay and Lesbian romances the publisher called Dreamspinner Press specialises in this genre.

For history books try a search on the publishers The History Press or Pen and Sword.

Happy eReading, Paul.

New 'Kid Zone' website provides a kid-friendly eLibrary experience

We have just added a new version of the eLibrary to our webpage which is directed just at kids. The main eLibrary collection, http://erl.lib.overdrive.com, now has a separate site that will provide a safe and easy browsing experience for kids. You can access the new site at the following address, http://erl.lib.overdrive.com/Kids or by clicking on the main site and then clicking on the 'for Kids eReading Room' button.

Just as the kid's section of the physical library is separate from the adult collection, the same experience is now available in the eLibrary collection. There are over 2,000 age-appropriate eBooks and eAudiobooks available in the 'Kid Zone'. Browsing can be done by subject, reading level or interest level. 

The 'Kid Zone' site filters the overall eLibrary collection to just show content for children which means that they get to the titles that they want faster. As ever this service if free to any member with a current library card. eLibrary titles are available anytime, anywhere and expire automatically after three weeks so there is no need to worry about late fees.

Happy eReading!

 

The 10 "Power Library User" tips that will save you time

We all probably know someone that has the library all figured out, the "Power Library Users". They get the most out of their public library service and save a lot of time while they're at it.



The following is a short list of tips that will get you on the way to becoming a "Power Library User" at Eastern Regional Libraries. Is it any wonder that all relate to the virtual library. You may have some of your own you'd like to share, so feel free to do so in the comments... so notepads ready? Here goes....

10. Troubleshooting via social media
Power Library Users don't wait for a library visit to sort out issues with downloading eBooks or trouble with their account. They head straight to our Facebook or Twitter pages and connect with library staff there. In addition, we frequently answer questions coming in from members via the Contact form on the website.

9. Suspending your holds while you're on holiday
Have you ever been frustrated to discover one of your holds has arrived while you're on holiday and are unable to pick it up? A great feature of the Enterprise catalogue is the ability to suspend/unsuspend your own holds. Click on the Holds tab in My Account, select the holds and click on the Suspend Holds button. You may reverse it via Cancel Hold Suspension once you're back home.



8. Can't find it at ERL? Switch your search to All Libraries
Eastern Regional Libraries is a member of the Swift Consortium including 19 Victorian libraries. If ERL doesn't have a copy of the item you're looking for, change the target of your search from Eastern Regional Libraries to All Libraries. You may place holds on titles at other libraries.



7. Long waiting list for a physical copy? Check our digital collection
Some titles may experience lengthy waiting lists if they receive some buzz in mainstream media. Power Library Users know to check our Overdrive eBook collection in case we have a digital copy of the title.

6. Get the App
With the exponential increase in the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, it's worth downloading the apps we make available via the library website. BookMyne allows you to search the catalogue and renew & place holds without having to scroll, pinch etc. The OverDrive Media Console app manages the search and download of digital content such as eBooks and eAudiobooks from our OverDrive collection. Downloading the Zinio app and registering will give you access to our digital magazine collection. We're adding more content all the time.

BookMyne - iTunes Free
BookMyne - Android Free
ERL Libraries Free
Overdrive Media Console Free
Zinio Magazines Free

If iPads and eBooks are still new to you check out our free talks in our libraries.

5. Favourites
Over the past few years many members have enjoyed receiving email alerts when titles by their favourite author have been added to the collection. While Favourites is not available with the new Enterprise catalogue, they may be maintained via the previous eLibrary catalogue and the report will still be sent via email. You will need to be logged into the eLibrary catalogue using your userID and PIN to add, modify and view Favourites. Discover how to add authors to your Favourites through the catalogue guide.

4. Research 24/7
Just because the physical library may be closed doesn't mean that you can't access our resources. Eastern Regional Libraries subscribes to a vast range of online resources, most of which are available remotely from home 24/7. Click on Online Resources on our library website and you'll find encyclopedias, newspapers, online study materials, language courses and more.

3. Placing multiple holds at once
The new Enterprise catalogue allows members to place multiple holds at once, for a series or books by the same author or on the same subject. Just click the checkbox beside the desired titles in the brief results and select Place hold(s) from the action menu at the top.



2. Signing up for date due reminders
This one saves money too. Notify library staff of your email address and we'll add it to your membership record. You'll receive an email 4 days before the item is due so you can renew or return the item on time. Notify the library of any change to your email address and make sure your Inbox isn't full.

1. RSS feeds
There are two places I use RSS feeds regularly. Firstly on the catalogue, to stay updated with the latest titles on a subject. I construct a search and click on the orange RSS feed icon at the top of the brief results. I add the feed to my preferred feed reader, in my case Firefox's Live Bookmarks. I don't need to perform the search over and over, I simply go to the feed.



The other area is the Events Calendar. By clicking on the Upcoming Events link in the calendar and selecting my favourite branch then clicking Go I can view the events in my branch for the next 30 days. By clicking on the orange RSS feed icon on the results page I can add this feed to my preferred reader. If I want to know what's on this month all I need to do is go the the reader. Similarly, on a smartphone I can add an event to my calendar by touching the "9 icon". Voila!



Do you have any favourite tips to share? Let us know in the comments below, on our Facebook page or on Twitter.

Cheers, webgurl

Some important notes regarding the OverDrive Media Console upgrade next Wednesday 29th May

So many of our members are enjoying OverDrive ebooks on their mobile devices and it's great to see! We wanted to pass on this announcement from OverDrive regarding the next Media Console upgrade with plenty of notice.

OverDrive are releasing an updated version of the OverDrive Media Console (OMC) mobile app for iOS and Android (v2.6.5) on Wednesday 29th May (Australia time).

Important change for OverDrive Media Console for iOS v2.6.5 (iPhone, iPad etc)

As a result of changes to Apple's privacy policies, OverDrive have had to make changes to the way they handle licensing for EPUB ebooks & MP3 audiobooks. Therefore the upgrade will de-authorise every user's Adobe ID.



After upgrading to OverDrive Media Console v2.6.5 on these devices members will be prompted to authorise the devices with their Adobe ID again. The ID is your email address and hopefully you've remembered the password. To continue reading the ebooks you've previously downloaded you'll need to sign in with the same AdobeID used previously.

Audiobook users

Audiobook borrowers that have partially downloaded an audiobook prior to the upgrade will need to return to the library bookshelf to download any missing parts.



If users try downloading missing parts directly without first reactivating the download from their library website bookshelf, they will receive a ‘downloadManagerErrorDomain:403’ error.

For more information on the upgrade visit the OverDrive blog.

Cheers, webgurl

The heat is on...

Hi all,

as that great philosopher Glenn Frey once mused 'The Heat is On', and now that I have that aural worm implanted in your heads I will get to the gist of this post which is to remind you that you can enjoy all of the benefits of the eLibrary from the air-conditioned comfort of your own homes. There are over 15,000 eBooks and eAudiobooks available for you to download to your PC, tablet, eReader or smart phone via the Overdrive page of our eLibrary. The latest notable authors to appear in the eLibrary are Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher stories, and Kate Morton, the Australian author of the latest bestseller 'The Secret Keeper'.

You are also able to download and keep copies of over 200 popular Australian, American and British eMagazines via the Zinio page of the eLibrary. The biggest hits with our members so far are 'Better Homes and Gardens', 'Australian Home Beautiful' and 'New Scientist'. It is a bit fiddly to set up the service and I thoroughly recommend that you read the User Guide that will help you through the process of registering an account but the benefits far outweigh the temporary inconvenience..... the quality of the graphics from 'National Geographic' is brilliant on the new iPads.

Happy eReading, Paul.

PS: Don't forget that there are a whole host of other Online Resources that you can access from home to entertain and educate yourselves and any young persons living in your household. My particular favourite is 'Busythings' - who can resist a pink doughnut eating monkey?

Overdrive eLibrary is back

The Overdrive eLibrary is back and running once again.

My apologies to those dedicated eReaders amongst you who have been missing downloading eBooks and eAudiobooks for the past couple of days.

Regards, ePaul.

New titles added to the eLibrary

We have added 1,332 new eBook titles to the eLibrary in the past week due mainly to the fact that Transworld Publishers (part of Random House) and Harper Collins Australia have released their titles into Overdrive. This means that eLibrary members now have access to eBooks by the following authors:

Transworld (mainly international authors) - Monica Ali, Dan Brown, Lee Child, Michael Crichton, Roddy Doyle, Ben Elton, Frederick Forsyth, David Gemmell, Tess Geritsen, Bear Grylls, Mo Hayder, W.E. Johns (Biggles!!), Alexander Kent, Sophie Kinsella (Shopaholic), Henning Mankell (Kurt Wallander series), W Somerset Maugham, Andy McNab, Richelle Mead, Iris Murdoch, James Patterson, Terry Pratchett, Katie Price, Douglas Reeman, Anne Rice, Salman Rushdie, Chris Ryan, Jacqueline Wilson, Karin Slaughter, Irvine Welsh, PG Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster).

Harper Collins Australia (mainly Australian authors) - Robert G Barrett, Carmel Bird, Deborah Challinor, Peter Fitzsimons, Nikki  Gemmell, Linda Jaivin, Elizabeth Knox, Karl Kruszelnicki, Stephanie Laurens, Tobsha Learner, Stuart Littlemore, Colleen McCullough, Linda Lael Miller, Tara Moss, Lynne Wilding, Sally Wise.

We have also added some Allen & Unwin titles including the latest books by Kate Morton, Chris Masters and Christi Malthouse's biography of her famous dad.

Happy eReading.

Cheers, Paul.

Lee Child eBooks now available in the eLibrary

Before you go along and see the new Jack Reacher movie starring Tom Cruise why don't you first read the book on which it is based 'One Shot'? Transworld Publishers have just released the series as eBooks and you can find numbers one ('Killing Floor') to thirteen ('Gone Tomorrow') in the eLibrary.

The other four books in the series are all available as paper books (pBooks)  and audiobooks in the branches. The latest book in the series, 'A Wanted Man', has just been released and you are able to place a reservation from home or by giving one of our branches a call.

Happy eReading,

Paul.

Get your Bond on in the eLibrary!

There's only a week to go until Skyfall, the new James Bond movie, premieres here in Australia but if you can't wait until then to get your dose of thrills, spills and adventure you should go to our eLibrary where you will be able to find all of the Ian Fleming penned Bond adventures on eAudiobook. There are 12 in the series and they are read by such British acting luminaries as Damian Lewis (Diamonds Are Forever), Kenneth Branagh (The Man With The Golden Gun), Bill Nighy (Moonraker) and David Tennant (On Her Majesty's Secret Service).
In the eLibrary you can also find the eAudiobooks for the Young Bond series written by Charlie Higson - meet James Bond before the name became a legend and the boy became a man.

If you like your spy thrillers a bit more gritty and realistic you will also find the Bernard Sampson and Harry Palmer series by Len Deighton available as eBooks. Several of the Harry Palmer series were made into movies with Michael Caine taking the part of the downtrodden hero. The most memorable being The Ipcress File and The Billion Dollar Brain.

But if you want to find out what it was really like to work for MI5 and MI6 you should listen to the Circus spy stories starring George Smiley and written by ex-British Intelligence agent John Le Carre. You can find all of the Karla Trilogy in the eLibrary beginning with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, continuing with The Honourable Schoolboy and finishing with Smiley's People.

Enjoy!
Paul.

PS: If you want to see how Fleming envisaged how James Bond looked go to the following Wikipedia article - James Bond.

Recommend eBooks to the Library with Overdrive

It is #followalibrary day @EasternRegional on Twitter - and to celebrate Eastern Regional Library is rolling out a new feature on the Overdrive eBook Collection that allows people to recommend eBooks and eAudio books to the library.

Yes - you read that correctly! If there is something we don't have, you can search for it in the "Additional Titles" collection. Here you can choose the item you think we should add to the library and click the blue "Recommend" button. Ta Da!! It is that easy.

It gets even better - when you make a recommendation, Overdrive will also give you the option of being notified if we buy the item and can also automatically place you on the reservation list to borrow when it comes in. People will be able to recommend up to 5 items per day.

So, get in there and have your say about what you would like us to have in the Overdrive eLibrary Collection and tweet us @EasternRegional what you recommended!!

Interesting statistical factoids

I have been number crunching figures regarding how many items the library purchased in the last financial year and have converted them into the following set of factoids which may be of interest.

We purchased 77,612 items for the libraries last financial year.

Now close your eyes and imagine that you are in the Eastern Regional Libraries Cheer Squad behind the goals at the MCG.

If you placed the 3585 CDs that we bought on top of each other they would make a pile twice the height of two goal posts placed on top of each other.

If you then decided to place all of the magazines that we purchased on top of each other (11,295) they would reach as high as a light tower at the MCG (75m in height - the equivalent of a 24 story building).

If you then placed all the DVDs we bought end to end (10,985) they would stretch from the MCG all the way up to the front steps of the State Library of Victoria (2.1 km).

And then if you were to place all of the books that we have purchased this year (Fiction, Non-Fiction and Paperbacks = 33,990) in equal piles in front of the State Library you would have 24 piles of books reaching as high as the library's dome.

But what was even more amazing was the following calculation based on the items purchased for the eLibrary. 

The eLibrary collection contains 7,636 eBooks and 1,607 audiobooks.

I was able to calculate an average for the file size of the eBooks and audiobooks and then calculated that the total size of the eLibrary equated to approximately 60,000,000 kilobytes......... which sounds pretty impressive until you realise that 60,000,000 kilobytes equates to 60 gigabytes or 0.06 terabytes.

Basically you would be able to store our entire eLibrary collection on a 1TB portable hard drive from Dick Smiths and have room for another 15 ERL eLibraries on it!

A 1TB portable hard drive is the same size as a normal paperback book and costs $150.

Cheers, Paul.

New additions to eLibrary

For your delight and delectation we have added 260 new audiobook titles and 717 new eBook titles to the eLibrary. You can browse and peruse these new titles by doing an Advanced Search and choosing Within the last 7 days in the drop down menu next to Date added to site.

Amongst the audiobooks you will find works by Dick Francis, Frederick Forsyth, David Attenborough, Nick Hornby and P.D. James. The eBooks have titles written by Augusten Burroughs; the Inspector George Gently series by Alan Hunter; horror stories from the pens of Graham Masterton and Phil Rickman; plus many of the Text series of classic Australian books including Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career and Nino Culotta's They're a Weird Mob.

Happy eReading and eListening.

Cheers, Paul.

Changes to ERL eLibrary

We have changed the borrowing periods for both eBooks and eAudiobooks in the eLibrary. All items can now be borrowed for 21 days in order to give you more time to read or listen to your downloads.

Happy eReading!

Cheers, Paul.

At the stroke of midnight Thursday night Harry Potter will be available on our Overdrive eLibrary

Harry Potter ebooks & downloadable audiobooks will be available for loan from our Overdrive eLibrary from midnight tomorrow (Thursday) night. The launch has been brought forward by a month. 

 

We have a couple of copies of each title and we already have a waiting list of 10 people for the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone audiobook, so there may be a wait.  

 

You may place yourself in the waiting queue for one of these titles via the Overdrive eLibrary website

Cheers, webgurl

Finding your way around e-books and e-Library with @LibraryGod

Want to download an audiobook or an eBook? Have a smart phone, iPad or eBook reader?

Paul Burden aka @LibraryGod will share his experiences with this exciting new technology. Come along and learn all about it at our information session right here at Lilydale Library.

It's easy!

When: Tuesday 14th March 2pm
Where: Lilydale Library, Anderson Street, Lilydale
Cost: Free event
Bookings preferred phone 92943120 or book online - e-books

Cheers, Maryanne

eLibrary collection continues to grow

We have recently added 424 new eBook titles to the eLibrary that can all be accessed from wherever and whenever you are if you have a connection to the internet. The latest update includes children's novels, picture books, graphic novels, crime fiction, romance, recipe books, self-help manuals, histories, true-crime, joke books, classics, biographies, westerns and much, much more.

Enjoy your eReading.

Cheers, Paul.

Ask our expert: Finding your way around eBooks and eLibrary

• Ready - choosing the right device
• Set - Loading the correct program
• Go - Checking out our catalogue

Paul Burden will share his experiences with this exciting new technology.

When: Friday 17th February 1pm
Where: Yarra Junction Library Hoddle Street, Yarra Junction
Cost: Free event
Bookings essential phone 59671588 or book online - eBooks
Cheers, Maryanne

New additions to ERL eLibrary

We have just added a couple of hundred new titles to the virtual bookshelves of our eLibrary. Amongst the quality titles you will now find waiting to be downloaded to your eReader of choice are the following eBooks:

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins (these are also available as eAudiobooks)

The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater (numbers 1 and 2 are also available as eAudiobooks)

Extra copies of the highly popular Harry Bosch series of books by Michael Connelly.

Other authors included are Marcia Muller, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Howard Jacobson and Andrew Klavan.

And for your listening pleasure the following eAudiobook titles are available:

Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

The Firm by John Grisham

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

Enjoy your eReading and eListening!

Cheers, Paul.