Norman residents and students can now borrow library books without leaving their homes.
The Pioneer Library System, which includes Norman, is the first in Oklahoma to offer its collection of eBooks on the Amazon Kindle and any electronic reader with the Amazon Kindle application.
Christian Potts of the Pioneer Library System said their digital collection of more than 22,000 downloadable items — including audiobooks, digital books and public domain items — is available to residents, workers, students and landowners in Cleveland, McClain and Pottawatomie counties with a virtual library card.
A virtual library card is just like a physical card; patrons sign up for the card at one of the Pioneer locations and then can access the e-book collection, Potts said.
Pioneer has had a virtual library for more than two years and there has been an increase in use each month, Potts said.
The collection was available on the Barnes and Noble Nook and a handful of other readers, but only when licensing issues with Amazon were recently worked out were patrons be able to access eBooks on their Kindle.
“I suspect [Pioneer eBook checkout] will continue to increase each month now that the Kindle and Kindle app are compatible,” Potts said. “It’s very progressive and exciting.”
Normans’s collection may be wired, but OU is not there yet.
Director of Public Relations and Strategic Initiatives for OU Libraries Sarah Robbins said the OU collection is not supported on e-readers.
“At this point in time, they are not providing content that can be easily downloaded into the various e-book readers, but they are continually making improvements to their interfaces and moving in that direction,” Robbins said.
Coordinator of Digital Initiatives Maura Valentino said the only available format for OU’s digital collection is the PDF file, but she explained certain items are available to anyone on the Internet.
Digital collections are PDF copies of the more interesting works of OU Libraries, explained Valentino. They are available on the library website.
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