eRead Illinois=more ebooks at LME Library

The LME Library is participating in the eRead Illinois Program, designed to increase access to e-books across Illinois. The LME Library card holders already have one ebook service, ADML (limit 2 @ a time), but now have access to more ebooks through eRead Illinois (limit 3 @ a time).   This increases ebooks checkouts for LME Library patrons to a total of 5 ebooks at a time!  Patrons at libraries participating in eRead Illinois can access the cloud-based delivery across a number of devices including iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, NOOK^® and Sony Reader^TM devices, and many more.

What are the differences in the services?  ADML provides both ebook and audio book downloads from the vendor, OverDrive. Materials are purchased for both children and adults. eRead Illinois only has ebooks and from the vendor, Baker & Taylor. Materials are purchased for both children and adults but the focus is on popular material with multiple copies purchased when items are in demand.  Both services are shared consortia collections which provide larger selections of materials yet reduce the costs to the libraries.

Illinois Heartland System and Reaching Across Illinois Library System have partnered with the Illinois State Library and Baker & Taylor to provide this access. Initial funding for eRead Illinois was provided by a grant from Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White through the Illinois State Library. “RAILS selected Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 platform for the eRead Illinois grant because of the breadth and depth of available titles, the flexibility of options to meet the diverse needs of our libraries across Illinois and the ADA compliance of the Baker & Taylor Blio ereader. Equal access for all users in RAILS member libraries is very important to us,” said Dee Brennan, Executive Director of Reaching Across Illinois Library System.

eRead Illinois is available through the LME Library website at lmelibrary.org or directly at lme.axis360.baker-taylor.com and requires a LME Library card number and PIN.  Contact the library at 309-385-4540 if you have questions about your library card number/PIN or have any other questions about this service.