It has now been about a month since we moved our digital collections over from Overdrive/Libby and Axis 360 into cloudLibrary, and we are happy to report that eBooks & eAudiobook checkouts are at an all time high. We thank you all for your patience through this transition.
One of the factors in our decision to move to cloudLibrary was to have access to cloudLink, which allows us to share eBooks and eAudiobooks with other participating libraries in Ontario – ultimately increasing the number of books available for our customers to borrow.
How cloudLink works:
- If an eBook or eAudiobook is sitting on the (virtual) bookshelf at another participating library, it will show as available to borrow for Windsor Public Library customers. It will appear in cloudLibrary as part of our collection. You don’t have to search each library individually to see what they offer.
- Windsor Public Library customers cannot place holds on items from other libraries, just as customers from other libraries cannot place holds on titles from WPL. Only titles that are not checked out and do not have a holds list are made available through cloudLink, which means that you are not competing with customers from other libraries for high demand titles owned by WPL, and vice-versa. If you can place a hold on a title, that means WPL owns it.
- Titles that are only available to us through cloudLink will not appear in our library catalogue (Bibliocommons). If you search in cloudLibrary you will see our holdings as well as cloudLink holdings – again – you won’t be able to tell the difference between the two.
- Due to the nature of cloudLink, you will see fluctuations in our collection. You might see a title there one day (available through cloudLink), but then the next day you might search for that same title or author and the search yields zero results. The reason for this occurrence is that as soon as a cloudLink title is borrowed (therefore no longer available), it will disappear from our “collection” until it is available to borrow again.
- Titles owned by WPL will always be visible in a cloudLibrary search. If an item is checked out, you will have the option to place a hold. If you search for a title and cannot find it, you are always welcome to submit a Request for Purchase to our staff.
If you have any questions about cloudLibrary or cloudLink, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. We are happy to walk through the App with you and answer any questions.
