The Santa Maria Public Library hosted a semi-truck full of technology Friday to educate more than 100 people about downloading e-books, audiobooks and other free digital content it offers.
The OverDrive Digital Bookmobile, which is on a cross-country tour, set up shop in the city for six hours. TV monitors greeted people with information about which icons referred to what, while a row of computer stations waited to give people interactive demonstrations of how to use the library’s online services. Employees stood by to answer questions while a bank of mobile devices like Nooks and iPads were available to give a hands-on experience.
“(The service works on) pretty much … any device — computers, tablets, smartphones,” said Katie Yap, an OverDrive digital media event specialist.
Lea Cryor, head of reference services, said the Santa Maria Public Library has checked out almost 15,000 digital items in the past six months. Items available include books, audiobooks, magazines and newspapers.
“It’s just like checking a book out at the library,” Cryor said. “The difference is you can change your checkout period. If you’re a fast reader, you can check it out for seven days; medium reader, 14 days; slower reader, 21 days. And then you can also renew them at the end of the time, or if there’s other people waiting for them, you can put your name back on the waiting list for it. It works just like the library catalog.”
Any person with a Santa Maria Public Library card can access digital content through OverDrive apps, she said. The library provides access to about 15,500 titles in e-book and audiobook format.
Santa Maria resident Rosalind Vanderhook said she downloads e-books from the library regularly but came to the demonstration to learn how to do more.
“I wanted to download magazines and newspapers … I’ve had trouble with that,” she said.