The Librarians as Digital Divas panel during BookExpo tackled the best way to provide service to customers using digital devices.

In opening comments, a speaker noted that digital devices are becoming less expensive and opined that people will become more accustomed to using their smartphones for everything, including reading, the next step in the evolution of e-reading devices.

A rep from Overdrive talked about the company’s long history of collaborating with public librarians to create a flexible digital lending model. He detailed Overdrive’s newest innovation: in approximately two weeks all of the media they currently offer will be available as Ipod/Iphone compatible.

In further discussions about digital circulation, Boston Public Library noted that of their 27 branches, their digital Overdrive service is #10 or #11 in circulation. Boston also is working on digitizing copyright- free and rare books that were previously only available for use within the library. They are also offering a scan-on-demand service, in which they share a link to the requested materials with patrons. This service is turning out to be a great way to get rare items in the hands of users and also to get the collection digitized.

Other random notes from this session:

*Romance novels are the top-circulating eBooks according to Overdrive.

*Librarians should organize digitization requests, based on areas of the physical collection that are doing well, and work with publishers to get it done.