By Alison Hewett of Kristin School and Beau Livengood of OverDrive.

Alison Hewett at Kristin School (New Zealand) utilizes every method she can to make sure her students have the best OverDrive site possible. Discovery of titles is crucial for any collection, and one newer option she and her students are benefitting from is highlighting a featured title at the top of the home page:

Capture.JPG

This is the first thing students see, even above the automated or curated collection displayed on the home page. Alison has found this particularly useful, adding “I’m loving how it works – the plan is to get someone to check the featured title out and generate at least 1-2 holds. It’s a way to raise awareness of a hidden series, for example, and hope it leads the reader to then borrow the rest of the series.” It started out as a “Title of the Week,” but we are now swapping it out 2-3 times per week since whatever title is featured gets borrowed and generates holds very quickly.

This feature can help schools with any budget/collection size. Those with tight budgets don’t have to purchase new titles to take advantage of it, and those with large collections can highlight a title that seems to be lost in the shelves. You can choose what to label the section (it doesn’t have to be “Featured Title”) and your Account Specialist can rotate the title as often as you see fit.

In addition to highlighting a featured title, Alison has excellent curated collections that she updates frequently, a multilingual interface and a Teachers’ Lounge. These are all free, helpful features that maximize engagement from your students and staff, and you can contact your Account Specialist to add them to your site.