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Year: 2015

To Canada: land of hockey, the CN Tower and Kobo

Posted on by od.admin

We had 4 wonderful events in Southern Ontario last week. The Digital Bookmobile made its annual pit stop in Stroud, Ajax, Vaughan, and Oakville.

Stroud is a quaint community where many people enjoy retirement. It sits on a lake and has a great library system. Patrons told us they loved living there! A Happy Hour group that meets each week for fun events in the area stopped by to see the Digital Bookmobile and learn about digital media. They even got a private class on how to get started.

Toronto was bustling with excitement over the TIFF film festival. We didn’t spot any celebrities while venturing around but we had a lot of fun exploring restaurants near King West and the gazing at the CN Tower. During events we had our own mini-TIFF in the bookmobile Video Lounge.

Our events in Ontario featured many Kobo eReaders, Tim Hortons, and of course hockey. If you are a member of Vaughan Public Libraries, make sure you check out a digital book between now and October for a chance to win Maple Leaf tickets!

Next we will be back on the American East Coast with stops in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. Will we see you at any of these events?

To the East Coast!

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We have hit the East Coast!

After a long and fun journey in the Midwest and the friendly South, the Digital Bookmobile made its first stops on the East Coast in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

We first stopped at the Dover Area Community Library in Dover, PA. Set in the picturesque hills of Pennsylvania, the Dover library is a busy branch in a small, quaint community. It was a beautiful day at the library with several activities including a Zumba class, a visit from Girls Go Digital, and delicious snacks from the Baron Von Schwein food truck.

 

We were welcomed to the community and helped several patrons set up the OverDrive app on their devices. Our visitors were very excited about getting started with digital media and a few MVP’s drove over an hour to see the Digital Bookmobile! We ended our visit with an eBook story time on the Video Lounge TV read by George, the children’s librarian. You can read more about the action packed event in the York Daily Record.

 

After work, my coworker Andy and I made a mandatory stop at Hershey’s Chocolate World where we took a tour and left with a few pounds of chocolate.

Before we continue down the East Coast we will be in Canada September 9-12. Check the schedule to see if the Digital Bookmobile will visit you!

Bringing the Digital Bookmobile to Our Home Turf

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We had several Digital Bookmobile events on our home turf in Cleveland earlier this month including Digipalooza. It was a pleasure to host our public and school library partners at our campus and give them tours of the Digital Bookmobile

I had such a great time visiting all of our local library branches, especially the North Canton Public Library.  In addition to learning about the eReading rooms for kids and browsing the enormous digital collection (I signed up for a library card before leaving), patrons built flashlights and chose from 9 flavors of ice cream as a special treat. There was an outdoor story time and parents checked out tablets from the library for their children to use at home. In all, we had 150 visitors check out the Digital Bookmobile and learn about digital media.

One patron I worked with was Shirley who heard about our visit in her local newspaper.

 

She had never used digital media before and was very excited to get started. We quickly downloaded the app to her device and walked through borrowing an eBook. When her brother and sister-in-law stopped by shortly after, she was able to guide them through setting up!

Well done Shirley!

We are Back On the Road!

Posted on by od.admin

The Digital Bookmobile is off to a great start! We’re having a wonderful time on the road sharing the digital media services available at libraries across the US. So far we have visited libraries in Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Texas, and Tennessee!

Our first stops were in Aurora and Littleton, Colorado. It was my first time in Colorado and I loved having an amazing view of the mountains everywhere we went. We met a lot of great people but it was our young visitors who stole the show. Both libraries have eReading rooms for children that we showcased on the truck and were a big hit! Our workstations have all kinds of titles for kids (ages 0-99) to listen and read. So far the The Cat in the Hat and Frozen are the most read in every city. One great moment was an eBook story time in our Video Lounge in Aurora, Colorado. Julie from the Aurora Public Library read Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss to a group of children. She even had perfect character voices and a princess crown!
 
The best part of working with patrons is hearing that getting started with eBooks and audiobooks is much easier than expected. We look forward to getting more people started at our next stops near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Is the Bookmobile coming to your city? Let us know in the comments!