Recently, Carroll County Public Library (CCPL) shared a press release, expressing their excitement in being a part of a major milestone for the Maryland Digital eLibrary Consortium. The group, made up of libraries throughout the state, has long been one of our most active and forward thinking digital library partners, providing eBooks and audiobooks to the readers of Maryland for over a decade. During this time, they’ve seen their digital circulation continue to grow, having surpassed 2 million checkouts with OverDrive in 2016 alone.

Maryland Digital eLibrary

Carroll County has done their part to contribute to the continued success of the consortium. Despite making up only 3% of the state’s population, CCPL circulated nearly half a million digital titles from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016. From their press release: CCPL joined the Consortium in the Fall of 2004 to provide customers with unprecedented access to digital formats of popular and classic titles provided by the digital content provider, OverDrive. OverDrive, led by Steve Potash, CEO, is the leading provider of eBook and digital audio content in the US, and has supported and matured with the Consortium and CCPL by providing access to the latest titles using the newest technologies. The collection of titles continues to grow with each library system providing funds and staff to purchase new content and manage the collection.

The Maryland Digital eLibrary is a wonderful example of how consortia libraries can build a successful digital solution for readers by working together to build a robust collection. By building a large, shared collection of titles and then using OverDrive Advantage to provide content for your community, you can make your budget go further and continue to give your readers what they want.