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2016 turned out to be another record setting year as nearly 200 million eBooks and audiobooks were borrowed from OverDrive-powered library digital collections. This was an increase of 21% over a previously record high in 2015. These impressive numbers are the result of several key factors including the continued marketing and promotional efforts of our library and school partners around the world. Library staffs continue to take advantage of OverDrive’s automated services like Holds Manager and Recommend To Library to provide instant access to content to their users. These services, combined with the ability to curate collections frequently assured that users were seeing not just popular and high quality books, but titles that were available for them to read instantly.

curateOther factors that played into these record checkout numbers include the proliferation of digital book clubs through OverDrive as well as the continued popularity of digital audiobooks with the number of people using OverDrive Listen by 67% in 2016. It’s not just adult readers who are using your digital libraries, either. Young library users continue to love using their devices to read books as 2016 saw a 19% increase in children’s books borrowed. You can see our full story in our press release about this record setting year in digital library lending.