HOW DOES IT WORK?

On the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council library page, you can see links to a few different services: Clipper DL, which are audiobooks, and Overdrive, which are audiobooks as well as eBooks.  Without a membership, you can still browse a bit to see what the selection looks like.

For Clipper DL, you’ll need to log in to the library site with your library card number & PIN first, then get redirected to the Clipper DL site where you’ll need to create a one-time user ID & password.  To download content, you’ll have to download their Download Manager, which works on both Mac and PC.  As you’re installing that, you can decide if you are going to listen to the books via Windows Media (if you’re on a PC) or use iTunes to put it on an iPod or other Apple device.  It might sound painful but the whole process for your first download will take less than three minutes to install & set up, and after that it will be much quicker.

Each audiobook you download you can keep for 21 days after which the DRM expires it and you have to renew if you’re not finished listening to it.  Clipper DL has a catalogue of around 600 titles, and each month they add five new ones, so the selection is a bit small.  It’s definitely better for fiction than non-fiction titles.

Overdrive has a bit better selection (though neither one is Amazon, so you usually won’t get cutting-edge, brand new or niche topic books).  You can browse through audiobooks, eBooks, and even music and video.  The audiobooks have samples, which is great as the reader’s voice matters a great deal in audiobooks.  Most audiobooks can be downloaded to Mac, PC, burned to a CD, or downloaded as WMA or MP3 for various portable audio devices.

Similarly to Clipper DL, Overdrive gives you a checkout of 21 days for most downloads, with the exception of music and video which are 14 days maximum.  One of the things I love about Overdrive, though, is that there’s a native iPad app which lets you download, view and listen to eBooks and audiobooks you’ve checked out.  The process is a little clunky but it works and it’s nice to be able to access your checked out books anywhere.

With both of these services, there are limited digital copies at a time due to licensing restrictions, so you can request books that are checked out.  You’ll get an e-mail notification when the book is returned or has expired and then it’s held for you for three days to go to the site & check it out.

AVAILABILITY

I don’t know if every library in Ireland has this capability or if Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown is the only one, but for the amount of free content, it’s worth investigating your local library to see if they offer access to this or similar content.  It’s such an amazing resource.  I’m embarrassed to say I was a little shocked at how forward-thinking this library system is to offer these services but also things like language lessons, the Dictionary of Irish Biography, and many other interesting and useful resources.  So if you are spending a lot of money on eBooks or audiobooks, it’s definitely worth your time to go find your local library’s website and take a look.