eBooks

ADIEU, ADE. HELLO, THORIUM!

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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!  

A blue app tile with the letters "Th" in white text, and the word "Thorium app" underneath.

Thorium is a modern alternative to ADE, specifically designed for offline eBook reading. Unlike ADE, patrons will no longer 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!

ADE will no longer work with EBSCO eBooks beginning on April 14. You can find out more by visiting EBSCO’s Thorium FAQs here. Onward, into our glorious eBook future! 

-Mary, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 

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Holidays on Hoopla

We’ve been posting a lot about Hoopla recently – and for good reason! There’s so much available with no wait for library patrons! It’s all FREE for them with their Allegheny County library card.

And with Holidays on Hoopla, users can get great content to make their season merry & bright. From heartwarming Thanksgiving stories to enchanting Christmas adventures and the radiant glow of Hanukkah traditions, Hoopla has the perfect mix to entertain all ages and spirits high throughout the holiday season.

The Holiday Food & Entertaining collection has recipes, tips, and hosting inspo.

Holiday Entertaining

There’s kid-specific collections for Thanksgiving, Christmas & Hanukkah!

All collections

And what romance lover can resist the Countdown to Christmas Hallmark+ BingePass collection?!?

Hallmark+ BingePass

This is just a portion of the holiday & winter collections available! With these resources, you’ll find social media assets and flyers to spread the word about these great collections.

And if you’re looking for additional Hoopla promotional materials, you can find those in the full Hoopla Resource Center. There’s great content to share all year long!

-Richelle, Sewickley Public Library

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Inspire Me with AI recommendations, or, Libby’s gone grey?

Have you noticed that the Libby home screen looks a bit different lately? The middle button, which is usually the colorful Libby icon, has turned a mysterious grey color. It’s the menu option to access Libby’s new AI Reader’s Advisory tool, Inspire Me. 

I might be a little skeptical about AI functions being smashed into every app and aspect of our digital lives. However, Inspire Me has rolled out to Libby users worldwide this month, and you might get some questions about it. It isn’t completely awful, I promise!  

Below, you can see that the Home button has been replaced by that grey-ed out Libby icon. Tapping it takes users to the Inspire Me screen. 
 

Users are first presented with simple options: fiction, nonfiction, and tags. The tags option lets users select from their own self-created tags, which I think is pretty cool.

Note that on this screen, users can scroll past the Inspire Me section to access the usual home menu. I’ve already heard some outcry over the “loss” of the settings and support tools, so it’s good to know the menu is still there. There’s no way to turn off or opt out of Inspire Me mode, but users can scroll past it to get to the regular Manage Cards, Settings, Information, and Help sections. 

After the basics, patrons are presented with more granular subjects as well as age groups (kids, teens, and adults). Only one subject can be selected at a time. In this example, users wouldn’t be able to select “aquatic” and “celestial” (though if you have a recommendation, let me know!). I chose “adventurous.”

 

Behold! Libby presents the AI generated “inspirations,” which are short summaries pulled from Libby’s metadata and passed through an LLM. “Arctic expeditions ending in disaster and loss” (Shackleton/Endurance edit added for dramatic effect)?  My favorite! 

Once users have picked an inspiration, they can swipe through to choose from five recommended titles. Libby prioritizes titles that are currently available for check out in the catalog.

As we all know, AI and large language models are imperfect and can make mistakes. If the Inspire Me recommendations seem off in any way, users can flag it as inappropriate and explain why. “Inappropriate” here means the suggestion does not match the prompts, e.g. if I got title recommendations about meatball recipes or outer space.

A chart pops up where users can select which suggestion was inappropriate. Submissions are anonymous, so users won’t receive a response from OverDrive, but it helps train hallucinations out of the AI tool.


That’s Libby’s AI RA tool in a nutshell. If you are interested in patron privacy, environmental impact, and other common issues surrounding this new technology, you can click here to read what OverDrive has to say about it. 

Personally, I wish there were improvements in their basic search function (can we get an “OR” operator please!) before they jumped on the AI bandwagon, but here we are. Have you used this new function yet? How inspired are you? Have you heard anything from your patrons about it?  

Once more unto the breach, 

-Mary Phillips – Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 

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Hoopla Bonus Borrows Coming Soon!

Thanks to my long list of romance authors I want to check out, I have been what I would consider a heavy Hoopla user this year – and I still forget to take advantage of my bonus borrows! This is a great feature Hoopla offers that your patrons – and maybe staff! – probably need a reminder about.

In the last week of every month, Hoopla offers a selection of titles as bonus borrows. These can be checked out with ZERO cost to the library and, since it counts as a bonus, it doesn’t use up one of the 5 checkout spots. Sure, you’re not able to freely browse – this is a curated collection offered up by Hoopla, but it includes eBooks, audiobooks, comics, TV, movies, and a BingePass, so there’s something for everybody.

So maybe you’re about to go on vacation and want to squeeze in a TV show on your days off. Maybe you’ve got a patron just trying to get a little extra on their summer reading challenge. This month, bonus borrows are available from July 25th – July 31st, so you’ve got time to start spreading the word! If you check out Hoopla’s resource center (an incredible service in its own right that I also forget to take full advantage of!), they’ve got graphics you can post to your social media or display around your libraries.

-Jaime @ Penn Hills Library

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