Download Audio Books Are Sweeping the Nation's Libraries

Market Wire, January, 2005

From New England to Arizona, from high-tech Silicon Valley California to the farmlands of Ohio, audio book listeners are starting the New Year with the added convenience of being able to download best-selling spoken word titles from their local library websites. In just the past two weeks alone over 100 libraries in Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York have joined dozens of the nation's leading public library systems in Washington, California, Ohio, and Arizona by providing digital audio book downloads for free to library card holders from the comfort of their homes or offices 24/7.

OverDrive Audio Books (www.overdrive.com) is a new digital service that provides listeners with immediate access to thousands of popular spoken word audio titles via their library's website and online catalog. OverDrive Audio Books were developed in cooperation with leading public libraries including King County Public Library, San Jose Public Library, Cleveland Public Library and Denver Public Library. In addition to the growing collection of popular unabridged titles, OverDrive Audio Books permit burn to CD, transfer to over 500 portable devices including MP3 players, and contain accessibility features built-in for blind and visually impaired readers.

"Our patrons love the new digital downloadable audio book collection and it's proving to be very popular," stated Cynthia Orr, Collection Manager of Cleveland Public Library. "OverDrive's Digital Library Reserve system is flexible and extremely easy to use," she added. Cleveland Public Library's success with Digital Library Reserve was recently featured on NBC Nightly News. A video clip can be viewed at: http://video.msn.com/video/p.htm?t=1&i=bbfd4635-0ece-410b-994d-21474ba5ae96&rf

Over 25 leading audio publishers have joined OverDrive's Digital Library Reserve network. Thousands of best selling fiction, business, self-help, children's, education, and language learning audio are available in OverDrive Audio Book format. These include popular titles from authors Ken Follett, Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Bernard Cornwell, Dave Barry, Amy Tan, P.J. O'Rourke and others.

OverDrive Audio Books will be on display January 14 - 17, 2005 in Booth #2036 at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. OverDrive and Digital Library Reserve will be providing live demonstrations of the system.

More information about Digital Library Reserve and a list of participating libraries is available at www.dlrinc.com.

Contact Jennifer Jackson OverDrive, Inc. (216) 573-6886 x207 jjackson@overdrive.com