OverDrive Releases Optimized iPad App for Library Ebook Lending

People have been waiting for OverDrive's answer to the iPad, and now it's here. This week, the company released its optimized iPad app, allowing iPad users to borrow and read ebooks at full size (and listen to audiobooks) from more than 13,000 libraries around the world.

In December, OverDrive unveiled its OverDrive Media Console app for Android, iPhone, and iPod Touch—but the iPad was notably absent from the list of supported devices. Although the app technically worked on an iPad, it would only display library ebooks at a reduced iPhone size. As a result, many iPad owners interested in reading library ebooks explored other avenues, such as the Bluefire Reader app—including LJ's Josh Hadro, as documented in a November LJ Insider blog post.

Like the iPhone version, the new app supports EPUB ebooks and MP3 audiobooks. It also allows wireless borrowing, freeing patrons from having to physically connect to a computer to borrow ebooks from the library.

It's "easy peasy"
Reaction to the app in its first few days of release has been positive. For example, one Twitter user, ReadingChick, a longtime children's librarian, on Wednesday called the app "delicious" and "[e]asy peasy just like pie."

But Laura Dawson, content chief with digital content company Firebrand Technologies, responded to a bigger issue when she tweeted on Wednesday: "Overdrive just released an iPad app for library ebooks. Game over." She followed that tweet up with another: "With Overdrive's app, the price of ebooks just became zero."

LJ asked Dawson—a longtime publishing consultant who once worked for library automation company Sirsi (now SirsiDynix)—to explain what she meant by "game over," and she responded via email: "I just think that because OverDrive has made this app available for the iPad (and given the popularity of the iPad), it means that a WHOLE lot more people will be downloading library books."

She also pointed out that Amazon's Kindle has no library elending functionality, and that while Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Sony Reader do support such elending, "the convenience of [OverDrive's] in-app borrowing is just breathtaking."

Makes libraries "hella relevant"
"If OverDrive's iPad app is easy to use, that removes a HUGE deterrent to ebook borrowing," Dawson said. "And if that's that case, it essentially renders the price of an ebook to zero, for the end-user. Will it kill ebook sales? Not at all—people do like to own, or to have the option NOT to be on a waiting list for a particular title—but it does elevate the role of libraries in the digital environment, and makes them hella relevant."