Free Audio Book and Music Downloads Now Available @ Your Library

If you received an MP3 player as a holiday gift and want to download a book or some music, the Western State College Library Web Site.

Western State College's Savage Library now provide free downloads of audio books and music to our patrons through the Marmot Library Consortium. Marmot members have contracted with OverDrive, Inc., an Ohio company with over 20 years experience providing digital content over global networks. Western State library users can access the new digital collections at http://www.western.edu/lib or http://marmot.lib.overdrive.com.

Member libraries created a start-up collection of over 1,000 titles. They may be “checked out” for 14 days and downloaded to personal computers and laptops, then transferred to compatible listening devices. Many of the titles may be burned to CD.

Using the bar code number on the back of your Mountaineer card you can borrow items from the digital site 24/7 from your home, or anywhere over the World Wide Web. At the end of the loan period, the book or music is automatically “checked in”, so there are never any overdue fines or late fees. There is also no physical disk to lose or damage, so there is never any replacement cost. If the you want to listen to a book or music score that someone else has checked out, you can place a hold on it and be notified by e-mail when it is available.

A portion of the audio book collection is leased, rather than owned by the Marmot Library Network consortium, and can be checked out by an unlimited number of users at the same time. These are primarily classic works.

Marmot Library Network Executive Director, Joel Robinson says: “None of our member libraries could afford to offer this service on their own. The power of group purchasing and the start up Federal funds from the State Library of Colorado has made it possible. Now library card holders on the West Slope can use the library without coming to the library buildings.” In the future, the consortium of libraries intends to add videos to their digital collection.