GC Library joins state consortium

Max Burton, 6, of Hot Springs picks out a sweet treat from Brook Olsen with the Garland County Library as Tiffany Hough, Garland County children’s librarian, grabs his snack from the cooler last week. Sweet treats were given to children signed up for the summer reading program. Burton had logged about two and a half hours by March 17. - Photo by Grace Brown of The Sentinel-Record
Max Burton, 6, of Hot Springs picks out a sweet treat from Brook Olsen with the Garland County Library as Tiffany Hough, Garland County children’s librarian, grabs his snack from the cooler last week. Sweet treats were given to children signed up for the summer reading program. Burton had logged about two and a half hours by March 17. - Photo by Grace Brown of The Sentinel-Record

In an effort to provide superior digital access to its patrons, the Garland County Library will join the Arkansas Digital Library Consortium at the beginning of July, expanding the number of digital titles available by tens of thousands.

"Our contract was up with Overdrive so it was the perfect time to change things up. We could either sign another solo contract or join the consortium. ... For us to do it on our own is about $8,000 a year just to be a customer (of Overdrive). To be a member of the consortium, our bill is $9,000, but $6,000 of that is to buy content, whereas before that $8,000 just paid for the platform, and then we had to buy titles," said Garland County Library Director Adam Webb.

Currently, Webb says the library has about 20,000 titles in its digital collection. The consortium has around 70,000. Once the merger is complete, Webb says there could be as many as 50,000 new titles available. The number of new titles depends on which titles the library can already access.

"With the consortium, we can look at what the consortium owns and if our license expires on something, but if five or six other libraries in the consortium have it, we don't necessarily have to buy it. Our readers will still have access to it," Webb said.

The Garland County Library is one of the few libraries in Arkansas not already part of the consortium, Webb said, noting it was a move the library considered for a long time but the move was partially catapulted by the pandemic.

"We did our numbers for the board meeting last month and March, April and May were all record-setting months for e-book usage," Webb said.

Joining the consortium not only increases the number of copies available but decreases the average wait time for books significantly.

"Our current average wait period is 81 days, and I'm not going to wait 81 days for anything. I mean, I might wait for a new blockbuster movie that long, but that's the only thing in my life that I want to wait that long for. And in the consortium, because the State Library puts in money, too, just to keep the whole ratio down, they keep it below 20 days," Webb said.

"If the waitlist is too long, I end up purchasing books. I realized that a lot of folks in our community who have the means to do that probably do the same. So we're missing out on serving some folks that we could easily be doing that."

However, with the shorter wait periods come a few drawbacks.

"The number of holds is decreasing. It will go from 10 holds to seven at a time, and readers will only be able to check out five books instead of 10. So those are kind of the drawbacks," he said.

The amount of time that a book can be checked is also changing. After the switch is made, patrons have two weeks to complete their selection.

"But the holds go so fast," said Erin Baber, the library's public relations liaison, noting books returned before the due date help speed along the process.

"Personally, I am excited just because I really liked the selection on the Digital Library Consortium, because it's all these different libraries, buying different titles. So it's just different stuff than what we would buy. There's some niche book genres and stuff that are available through there that might not be something that we would have bought."

Both Webb and Baber said the transition is going to be as seamless as possible. All users will need to do is log in as before to access the new titles.

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