By: Adam Sockel, OverDrive Marketing & Communications Specialist

As previously noted, digital Book Clubs are a perfect way to bring communities of readers together, regardless of their size or geographic proximity to one another. Digital Book Clubs enable a shared connection through reading that wouldn’t otherwise be possible for users who can’t make it to a specific physical location. From a marketing standpoint, digital Book Clubs can be used as a tool to bring in new users and inform communities about your digital library offerings. Over the last several years, OverDrive has worked with libraries and publishers to provide these unique reading experiences around the world.

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Big Library Read and Together We Read
Our 12th edition of the Big Library Read (BLR), the world’s largest global digital Book Club, recently finished up as over 50,000 OverDrive users borrowed and read Art of the Pie at the same time through their local libraries. Last year, we introduced another digital Book Club called Together We Read (TWR), bringing readers together that share a geographical location. The first iteration of TWR was a Book Club for Australia and New Zealand in 2016 and we’re excited to expand and offer the same service in Canada and the United Kingdom this year. TWR will offer readers an opportunity to read an eBook by an author local to their area, hear that authors thoughts and then share their own through our discussion boards.

Libraries of all sizes have long created shared reading experiences with their community through Book Clubs. Now, as eBooks and audiobooks have grown in popularity, libraries around the world are working with OverDrive to host and promote a digital version of a local Book Club with simultaneous access to selected digital titles.

digital book clubs 2Cityread London
Throughout the month of April, Londoners are celebrating the power of reading with S. J. Parris’ Prophecy, and library card holders can borrow the eBook from their library’s OverDrive digital library. This event is celebrated throughout all of London’s 33 boroughs each April. With the library at its heart, Londoners around the world can borrow the title whether they’re at home or abroad.

 

One Book, One New York
One Book, One New York is the largest community reading program in the United States, bringing together book-loving New Yorkers to read the same book at the same time. The program was launched in February 2017 and OverDrive worked with New York Public Library and publishers to help make the selected titles available in eBook and audiobook format for users in both English and Spanish.

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16 in ’16 Reading Resolutions
Sno-Isle Libraries created a reading challenge in 2016 by providing 16 different suggested book themes for their readers. Every 20 days, they issued a new challenge and Sno-Isle worked with OverDrive to make sure titles that fit those themes were available as simultaneous access digital titles.

National Library Board Singapore’s National Reading Movement
NLB Singapore is one of the most forward thinking library systems on the planet and they recently created an entire reading movement designed to increase literacy across the country. Part of this program included creating air conditioned, WIFI-enabled bus stops where they promoted their OverDrive services while people waited for their transportation. They featured six separate titles and worked with OverDrive to make them widely available.

Get Started with your own digital Book Club
OverDrive has helped support hundreds of library eBook clubs around the world and we’d love to help you make digital reading part of your next community event. To learn more about how you can take advantage of flexible access models with OverDrive’s help, visit our Community Book Clubs page and contact your Collection Development Specialist to get started.

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