Company Profile

Steve Potash founded OverDrive in 1986...

A World Enlightened by Reading

Steve Potash founded OverDrive in 1986. As the possibilities of the internet and digital books evolved through the 1990s, we refocused our mission. OverDrive launched our content distribution service in 2000, and since that time, our reach has rapidly expanded. Along with the industry’s leading digital reading platform, OverDrive now offers the largest digital content catalog in the world to more than 38,000 libraries and schools in 70 countries and the highest-rated apps that are built to create reading happiness.

Through the years, we’ve learned from our successes and challenges, and, most importantly, from our partners. Account by account, we’ve established long-term, trusted relationships with publisher, library and school partners around the world. From the beginning, it has been equally important to align with the mission of our global network to support communities with passion and collaboration while championing reading literacy. As we continue to reach for new goals, OverDrive’s vision, mission, core beliefs and values remind us of who we are as a company and what we strive for each day: A World Enlightened by Reading.

A Message from Mickey

 

About OverDrive

 

OverDrive joined the Rakuten Group in 2015...

and changed its brand name to Rakuten OverDrive in July 2017. Rakuten and OverDrive share the same values and hold sacred the mission of libraries and schools. Rakuten stands for “optimism” and believes in the future. Our goal is to build a fair society by empowering individuals and companies to be successful in business and in life. Learn more about Rakuten.

Taking responsibility for tomorrow