Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) reached a record-breaking milestone this week, with two million digital book checkouts. This accomplishment illustrates the continued growth and importance of library digital lending of eBooks and eAudiobooks, especially in a year with building closures due to the global pandemic. PPLD is one of only 40 OverDrive digital collections worldwide to hit the two-million mark at this point in 2020.
PPLD has been providing cardholders with 24/7 access to eBooks and eAudiobooks for several years through OverDrive and its award-winning Libby reading app. Reader interest and usage has grown every year, with about a 42% increase since 2016. In the wake of COVID-19, PPLD took extra steps to make the collection as accessible as possible like extending the length of online library card signups and reinstating expired cards from the 24 months prior to March 2020.
The milestone checkout was Cold as Ice: Lucy Kincaid Series, Book 17 by Allison Brennan and Ann Marie Lee on the evening of Oct. 27, 2020. At this point in 2020, PPLD’s highest-circulating digital title has been Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, checked out as an eBook or eAudiobook over 6,000 times. The top-circulating genres through OverDrive include fiction with more than one million circulations, nonfiction at nearly 460,000 checkouts, and romance at nearly 415,000 circulations.
Here are the top five titles borrowed through PPLD’s digital collection as of Oct. 29, 2020:
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- The Guardians by John Grisham
- Educated by Tara Westover
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Blue Moon by Lee Child
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
Residents in El Paso County only need a valid library card to access digital books from PPLD’s OverDrive-powered digital collection. Readers can use any major device, including Apple(R), Android™, Chromebook™ and Kindle(R) (US only).
Check out our eLibrary or download the Libby app to start borrowing eBooks and eAudiobooks anytime, anywhere!