by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
Have you finished your Christmas shopping? I have not, but I'd better finish it soon.
Online shopping is the friend of people who are busy, so I expect to do
much of my shopping that way.
Did you know that your Amazon and Barnes & Noble
purchases online can benefit our library?
Through our e-book service’s WIN program, if you click through to Amazon
or Barnes & Noble’s website from our site, we’ll get a credit toward the
purchase of e-books.
Here’s how you do it: go to our Overdrive e-book and audiobook site.
Look for the sidebar on the left that says “Before you shop… Help our
library WIN!” If you click on “Learn
More”, you’ll come to a screen that says “Click here first, help our libraryWIN”. Then you can choose to go to
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books On Board, Shop Indie Bookstores, or Powell’s
Books.
When you click through that part of our website to those
retail websites, a small portion of your purchase price gets turned into e-book
credit for our library system. We can
use those funds to buy e-books that you can borrow from us.
If you get one of those shiny new devices for Christmas, an
e-reader, tablet, or smartphone, you can borrow e-books and downloadable audios
from us. We have more all the time. Pioneerland reduced administrative expenses
this past year and has put a portion of those funds into creating a bigger
e-book collection to meet popular demand.
Another wonderful digital collection is coming in 2013. We will be getting electronic magazines that
you can view on a tablet, smartphone, or PC.
These will be the full magazines, laid out just as they are on print
pages. We will still get our print
magazines in the library, but this will expand the titles we can offer you and
allow you to view them anywhere that you can use a computer or your wireless
device. When you’re passing time in the
airport or sitting at your fireside on a snowy night, you’ll be able to get the
latest issue of magazines like Field and
Stream, House Beautiful, and Consumer Reports.
In fact, Newsweek
is halting its print issues in the new year, so the electronic version will be
the only one anyone will be able to read.
We will have it available in our electronic magazine service.
The digital magazines will only be available on devices that
can use apps and/or get on the internet at large. This means that straight e-readers that are
not wifi-enabled won’t be able to get to these magazines. They will work on iPads, iPhones, Blackberry
Playbooks, Android phones and tablets, and Nooks and Kindles that can browse
the web, as well as any PC with an internet connection.
We don’t have a date yet when this service will be available
to us, but I thought you might like to know this is coming as you make choices
about electronic devices for Christmas gifts.
Some people who don’t enjoy reading e-books find the thought of browsing
magazines online more appealing.
I hope you will have a very happy holiday season and a wonderful
new year. Merry Christmas, everyone!
