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Accessing eContent from Home

Annamarie Carlson

My library, like so many others across the country, has closed due to growing concerns related to the coronavirus. We are planning to provide online content to our patrons in the meantime.

So many folks are collecting fantastic lists of resources–I’m including some of my personal favorites over a series of posts, starting with accessing eContent.

Library Services

One of my favorite tips (that I use year round) is to remember that if your family has multiple library cards, or if you have cards to multiple libraries, each one may offer you access to some of the same eresources–but allowing you to get more content. If you organize your accounts and cards, you may actually be able to check out 18 or 30 or 50 items on a website like Hoopla each month. This doesn’t work for everyone, but it might be able to help some families.

Hoopla

Hoopla is awesome because everything is available to everyone with no waiting (though you are capped on the number of items per month). I talk about Hoopla during my book talks and am a regular user, so I am fairly familiar with its great content.

Some personal favorite titles that could be good to highlight to your patrons include:

Series or Authors, Kids Chapter Books:

Single Titles, Kids Chapter Books:

Picture Books & Beginning Readers:

Graphic Novels:

Libby (OverDrive)

OverDrive‘s content will vary depending on what your library or consortium has added to it. However, with services being used by many people at once, this might be an ideal time to highlight a special OverDrive feature–“It’s Your Lucky Day.” This provides patrons with a select number of popular titles that are immediately available. Content changes regularly, but at this moment, I could check out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and On the Come Up without waiting.

RBdigital

If your library subscribes, RBdigital is an awesome resource for kids magazines, all immediately available. My favorites on this website include:

Beyond Library Services

As much as we want to boost our library econtent, realistically, even just over the course of three weeks, the above resources are going to dry up. A card’s 10 Hoopla checkouts can only go so far, and the best content on Overdrive will quickly have long holds.

I’m including some other suggestions for ways to access econtent for kids, for free or cheaply, below.

Free:

Subscription Services:

Book Apps:

What other e-resources do you know about to help your patrons access ebooks and the like while stuck at home? Mention them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list above!

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