New Book

• Public Libraries Going Green by Kathryn Miller

New Books

• The Complete Library Trustee Handbook by Sally Gardner Reed and Jillian Kalonick for the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations
• Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers by Peter Hernon & Ellen Altman

Survey by OverDrive

Survey Results Give Insights About Your Patrons

July 29, 2010 08:50 by Shannon Lichty

Over the last few years, our library partners have experienced significant growth in download audiobook and eBook circulation. OverDrive is actively developing new features to enhance your download service user experience, and figured the best way to do find out what users want, is to ask them - so that's exactly what we did!

In June, we concluded a survey, linked on 10 of our highest traffic websites, with more than 5,000 responses from patrons around urban and rural America. The survey included questions regarding demographics, computer/device usage, borrowing habits, general feedback on user experience, and suggestions for collection development.

If you're like me, who loathed statistics class in school, the phrase "interesting data" may not have you jumping up and down. But trust me, these statistics are genuinely interesting:

• 74% of users are female, between the ages of 30-59.

• Nearly 70% have a college and/or postgraduate degree.

• 60% learned about the download service from the library's website (if our past blog posts and training sessions weren't enough to get you to promote on your website, hopefully this is!)

• 87% listen to audiobooks on an MP3 player, 44% of which are iPod users.

• 33% of users own an eBook reader (e.g., Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble nook)
For those who don't own an eBook reader, 90% stated that compatibility of eBooks from the library is an important factor.

-from OverDrive's Digital Library Blog