Thing 11

Unlike most other bloggers for 23 Mobile Things, I do not live in the Seven County Metro and I do not have a MELSA library card.  So, I chose to look at the apps that the library I normally use offers for its patrons - Overdrive and Freading.  I use a Wisconsin public library as my primary library; I am "bucking the instructions" for this blog and am writing about the two "book" apps that my library offers through it's consortium instead.

Overdrive is probably a familiar app to anyone and everyone who might read or stumble across this blog. I've been using the Overdrive app probably since 2010 (through the bad and the good).  I am not a huge fan of the e-book on my iDevices (too small a screen), but have used the app pretty extensively for ebooks, from when there was a glitch and you could "have" the e-book on your iPod forever to the current version.  Overdrive's search function isn't fabulous for new discovery of content but it works well if you know what you are looking for.  The new versions of the app have really improved the user experience in terms of item delivery (no more downloading to Adobe and then transferring to your device).  I would recommend this app to patrons for any device they may own.  One caveat - I have not had the opportunity to use the 3M Cloud, so I cannot compare content or experience.

The second app, or my "new app" is Freading.  Freading is a sister site to Freegal, a music service.  In my case, one of the Eau Claire libraries subscribes to this service, so libraries in the consortium have access to the service.  Freading is a "pay as you use" model, with patrons receiving tokens they can use to check out books, token amount depends on the content.  From what I understand, the consortium pays for usage of the content.  Unlike Overdrive, the content is always available for checkout.  But, none of the Big 6 publishers are taking part in the service at this time.

Turning to the app, frankly, I think the app sucks.  The only part of the process, from discovery to checkout, to reading that is available through the app is reading.  All searching, selection and checkout needs to be done through a web browser (which is not mobile compatible).  Then, during checkout, you are allowed to choose Overdrive OR Freading as a reading app for the content.  The app does not offer as many options as Overdrive.  The only options for the reader are a Table of Contents and text size - no bookmarks, no highlighting, no search, no options.

At this time, I would not recommend the Freading app to anyone, unless it was a librarian or an app developer working on ideas to help improve the app.  As far as Freading content goes, I am not overly impressed yet.  But the option to choose free e-books from the library beyond Overdrive is a good option for the user.  I will be checking back on this service and it's app as time goes on.