Next week libraries will receive information (blog posts for websites and a social media tool kit) to inform patrons.
After the Daily Spending Cap has been in place, we will be reaching out to gather feedback on how the Spending Cap is impacting the patron experience. Please consider gathering the feedback as you’re hearing it so that you can share it with us.
Thank you for your continued support as we work through the ever changing and evolving world of eResources! Please reach out to Hilary Lewis with questions.
Do you remember your Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) username and password? Neither do I! It makes it frustrating to read the EBSCO eBook I downloaded! Is this familiar? Well, good news.
Due to the upcoming ADA II compliance deadline, EBSCO eBooks is sunsetting its Adobe Digital Editions requirement. The product will not be in compliance, and EBSCO has moved on! Welcome to the modern era: Thorium Reader!
Thorium is a modern alternative to ADE, specifically designed for offline eBook reading. Unlike ADE, patrons will nolonger have to create a separate username and password (note: they will still be required to use their EBSCO username and password).
Thorium’s benefits include a range of text-to-speech functions, the ability to choose font type, text size, and spacing, as well as change the overall layout of the eBook. It is also designed to work with a variety of screen readers, making it accessible to more types of readers than ADE could ever dream of.
This will only affect offline reading, when a patron checks out and downloads an EBSCO eBook from our collection. Right now, Thorium is only available via desktop and iOS apps, though the Android version is coming down the pike.
Again, the online reading experience won’t change. When a patron wants to download an eBook for offline use, they will need to download Thorium instead of ADE. Below, you can see what it will look like in the EBSCO experience. Note at the bottom, patrons are provided with a passcode that they will be prompted to enter once they open Thorium.
They will only need to enter the passcode once per device to open the downloaded eBook. Additionally, they can use the same passcode across six devices simultaneously. If, as happens, they forget the passcode, it is easy to generate a new one.
Thorium is available as an app on our Microsoft desktop and laptop computers. You can download it now to take a look!
