By: Sydney Kalnay, OverDrive Training Specialist

One way we approach training at OverDrive is to let our products speak for themselves. The intuitive interface and workflow of the OverDrive web and mobile experience allow you to browse, borrow, and enjoy titles without much intervention from us, your trainers, and allow us to act more like facilitators than educators most of the time. However, just because something is simple to use doesn’t mean you won’t need help with it from time to time. To that end, we took a look at the top 5 most visited pages from the OverDrive Help website and are sharing our best practices for getting what you need from the products you love.

How to return titles before the end of your lending period

If you’re a fast reader or simply want to clear up space on your account so you can check out more titles more quickly, you may have already taken advantage of the early return feature. Where some confusion may come into play, however, is when the “Return title” messaging disappears from your OverDrive site.

If you’ve been using Read or Listen, our browser-based formats, the “Return title” messaging never disappears from your Loans or Checkouts page. If you’ve downloaded a title to the OverDrive app, the early return needs to happen from the app bookshelf instead. If you’ve downloaded the Kindle format, the early return process happens on the Amazon website, under your account.

The above article goes into more detail, complete with step-by-step screenshots for each scenario, to make this process even simpler!

Getting started with OverDrive

One of my favorite phrases in our department when discussing new account trainings is, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” In other words, it can be difficult to know where to begin with OverDrive if you’re not even sure what OverDrive does. This is a great article for anyone looking to learn more about the OverDrive experience, including a short summary, clear step-by-step instructions, and visual aids for finding the experience that best matches your needs and technology.

Not only can this article work for users who are new to digital books, but can be equally helpful for new hires in your library or school, or late adopters of the technology.

Get help with eBooks / Get help with audiobooks

If you’re not new to the overall idea of OverDrive, but the specifics of borrowing eBooks and audiobooks seem overwhelming, these two articles are great places to begin. Whether you want information about how to get titles from your library or school, what are the different types of eBook and audiobook formats available, or what is the best choice for the specific device you have, you’ll find what you need on these pages. Each section expands and collapses to show you a list of hand-picked articles to help you with each step of the process and, as always, each article contains clear instructions, including full-color screenshots, to ensure what you are seeing at home and on the help site are the same.

How to renew digital titles

If you are enjoying a title and you’ve reached the end of your expiration date but you’re just not ready to let the title go, you’ll want information about how to renew—or, in the case where the title is on hold for someone else, request again.

Renewing digital titles works a little differently than renewing physical books from the library. When you renew a digital title, it doesn’t extend your lending period; instead, it lets you borrow the title again immediately after your current checkout expires, if the title is still available (i.e. not on hold for another person.)

This article will walk you through the steps to ensure that you are reunited with your title as soon as possible, including the steps for receiving an email notification, where possible, when the hold becomes available again.

If you aren’t already using the OverDrive help website, peruse and bookmark the site today for a simple and thorough resource for your own work or to suggest to your patrons, students, and colleagues.