What‘s in the digital library?

Hundreds of popular and classic titles are available as either digital audiobooks or eBooks.

• eBooks can be read as text on a PC, PDA, or smartphone
• Audiobooks can be listened to on a computer, transferred to a portable audio device, or burned to CDs to use in your car (or wherever you like to listen to books)

Use the digital library online anytime, day or night. Search for a particular author or title, or browse categories including new arrivals, children‘s books, classics, romance, and mysteries. Nonfiction subjects include biographies, business, cooking, and foreign language instruction. Many new titles are added each week.

3-week check-out; nothing to return

Digital books can be “checked out“ for three weeks, and you can have five checked out at a time. While the book is yours, read or listen to it as often as you like.

After their due date, downloaded digital book files are automatically no longer usable, so there‘s nothing to return. (You may want to delete the files from your computer, though.) Books cannot be returned early (before their due date). However, any file that you have burned to a CD or transferred to another computer or portable device is yours to keep for your own use indefinitely.

Some books such as best-sellers are available in limited numbers. If all copies are checked out, you can “place a hold“ to reserve an item; an e-mail notice will tell you when it‘s ready.

There‘s also a collection of “Always Available Audiobooks“ that are, as the name says, always available!

Advantages for people with low vision & learning disabilities

Digital books offer advantages for readers with special needs. The on-screen text of an eBook can be easily enlarged. The playback of digital audiobooks can be adjusted; the speed can be slowed for readers with learning disabilities or increased for the visually impaired.

Free software & help downloading

You‘ll need special free software to use digital books, but it‘s easy to get. The first time you check out, the digital library will tell you what software is needed, then lead you through the downloading process. Digital books are compatible with most home computers.

Get started using digital books

1. When you‘re in the library catalog, look for the gray “MediaMall“ tab near the top of the screen. Click on it to link to the digital library. (From our homepage, use the “Quick links to…“ menu and choose “MediaMall.”)
2. When you find a book you‘re interested in, add it to your cart. An item in your cart is reserved for you for thirty minutes. If you haven‘t checked it out by then, it goes back onto its virtual shelf.
3. When you proceed to check out, you‘ll need to enter your Champaign library card number and your library account PIN (usually the last four digits of your phone number).
   Important: When asked to specify your library, you won‘t see “Champaign Public Library;“ choose “Lincoln Trail Libraries System.“
4. If it‘s your first time checking out a particular kind of book file, the digital library will help you download the software you‘ll need. After the software is in place, you can finish check-out.
5. Once a book is downloaded, you can transfer it to a portable device or burn it onto CDs if you wish. This copy will be yours to keep!

To see a complete list of subject areas in the digital collection, including many that aren‘t listed on the homepage, choose “Advanced search…“ and use the “Subject” pull-down menu.

What computer or portable device do I need?

Digital eBooks are in the Adobe Reader® and Mobipocket Reader formats and can be read on a PC, Mac, PDA, or Smartphone. (Please Note: Adobe Reader is not the same thing as Adobe Acrobat, which you may already have on your computer.)

Digital audiobooks are in the OverDrive Media Console™ or Mobipocket formats and can be used on PCs with Microsoft Windows operating systems and on various portable WMA/MP3 players, Smartphones, and PDAs. They are not iPod compatible.

MyMediaMall has a link to a “suggested list of portable devices.”http://www.playsforsure.com/FindPortableDevices.aspx Note that in order to use OverDrive Audio Book titles on a device, the device must either support the bit rate of 32kbps or be able to transcode 32kbps files to a supported bit rate.

You may want to check device documentation to determine if a device supports protected Windows Media content at 32kbps.

Note: If you are using a Pocket PC, you need to have a memory card with sufficient memory space installed in order to transfer audio book files from your PC to your PDA.

About eAudiobooks and Mac and iPod compatibility

OverDrive Audiobooks use copyright protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately, the iPod (and Mac) do not currently support copyright-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. The OverDrive Media Console is necessary to play files, and is currently only available for Windows PCs. Windows Media Player on a Macintosh will not work as a substitute.

Here‘s one option. See the MyMediaMall help page for instructions.

• On a Windows PC, download an audiobook following the instructions from MyMediaMall.
• Burn the audiobook to CDs, following the instructions from MyMediaMall.
• On a Mac, transfer the audiobook from the burned CDs to your iPod.

Troubleshooting

I can't seem to check out an eAudiobook; why not?

If you have unpaid fees or your library card has expired, your account may be “blocked.” You can see if there are blocks by checking your account online.

I got an error message while trying to download my audio book. It says a connection to the Internet could not be established, but I am connected to the Internet. Why am I getting this error?

According to OverDrive, this error typically indicates that Windows Media Player does not have a connection to the Internet. It is possible to receive this error message even if you are connected to the Internet.

OverDrive says that the error can be corrected by taking the following steps:

• Configure firewalls or Internet security applications to allow Windows Media Player to have Internet access.
• Disable any Web accelerators that you may be running.
• Add proxy server login information to the OverDrive Media Console. To do so, go to Tools > Options in OverDrive Media Console and fill in your login and password in the ‘Internet options‘ section.

You might also try East Brunswick Public Library‘s instructions for configuring Norton Internet Security to allow OverDrive Media Console to have Internet access.