The registration is for one year: and begins on the day your registration is submitted
You will be reminded to pay the $25 annual fee about one year from your registration date.
Why the annual fee?
The annual fee is a path to purchasing access to new Library2Go materials.
Since the DCLA is a volunteer run organization, the fee
(minus .85 cents for online processing) will be completely devoted to sustaining and expanding
the DCLA Library2Go materials access. Since you, as a user, will be helping to pay for e-book
and audiobook access, your recommendations will be given high priority. (see more information below)
*Required
DCLA & Library2Go Arrangement
Library2Go is a service provided by Overdrive®, Inc.
The DCLA Board's annual commitment to providing access to new books
and audio books is $6,000. Since the cost of access to a popular new
e-book is approximately $65 and to an audio book is about $85, the
DCLA board estimates that the $6,000 amount will purchase access to
about a 70-100 items each year. However, for the most part, once access
is purchased, it continues as long as the DCLA renews the annual Overdrive® contract.
This means that the DCLA collection may grow at 100 e-books or 70 audio books annually.
Moreover, grants and the forthcoming fees can fund additional material access
beyond the basic $6,000 annual commitment.
Advantages of a New Smaller Collection
Although the DCLA Library2Go will initially purchase access to less than 100 items,
it is important to note that presently there are only about 6,000 members registered at
the eight re-opened County libraries. Not all of the these 6,000 patrons
will be interested in this service - especially after we begin charging an
annual fee. When I used the Douglas County Library System's Library2Go, the
system was a member of a Oregon Digital Library Consortium that then served
thirty-four Oregon libraries. Many of these libraries were located in larger
cities and, statewide, the possible user count was over several hundred thousand
cardholders. This large user base, created a lively competition for newer books
and audios. Also, since the consortium had been buying access to e-books and
audios for over 10 years, many of its materials were no longer new or popular.
As a longtime user of the consortium's Library2Go, I often had to wait several
weeks to download new or popular books. However, the happy result of starting a
new service is that the DCLA will only be purchasing new or popular materials and
because there will be a small pool of initial L2G users, the materials will be more
readily available. As time passes, the number of L2G users will increase but also access to
new materials will continue to be added, A win, win!