While the nation’s librarians gathered in San Francisco for the 2015 annual Conference of the American Library Association (ALA), library users around the world helped contribute to a record setting day in digital reading. Monday, June 29, 2015 saw a new single-day milestone of 500,535 digital titles borrowed across all OverDrive digital collections and readers also placed more than 195,000 titles on hold as well!

“This spike in library lending of eBooks, digital audiobooks, magazines, newspapers and streaming video is the result of the tremendous efforts of thousands of librarians as well as significant ease-of-use improvements including seamless integration with library catalogs,” said David Burleigh, OverDrive’s Director of Marketing.  “We’re also seeing the effects of new access models publishers are offering through OverDrive, which have increased availability for readers.”

It’s not just the eBook sector that has exploded in 2015. Librarians at the ALA conference reported substantial growth for audiobooks in MP3 format as well as enhanced eBooks for children featuring “Read-along” Narrated eBooks, which utilize industry-standard EPUB3.  There has also been massive growth for digital magazines and newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other periodicals now available for U.S. libraries and schools through OverDrive.

Click here to see the full press release.