Only a Click Away

by Gretchen Beilfuss Witt  Rowan Public Library

 

            An often overlooked resource, One Click Digital is an additional way in which the library provides materials to  patrons electronically.  Ebooks and Audiobooks are both available on One Click.  You may be able to locate materials on One Click that you thought the library did not have available.  While there is some overlap of available books from Overdrive and One Click, for the most part the collections are not the same.  Recently, I discovered the entire collection of Isobelle  Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles on One Click; a fantastic find for those who follow series but are unable to find the "next" one in physical library holdings.  The physical circulating collection has only one of the books and Overdrive has only two of them.  One Click gives an additional option to find books that may not have been added to physical collection or to the Overdrive collection.

            There are several ways to use One Click.  You do have to set up an account to use the resource, but you have several access points.  Both Android and Apple have apps for the program so you can go directly to the "App Store" or Google Play to acquire the app for your tablet, Kindle Fire, IPad or phone.   You can set up an account on a desktop computer, but you need to download the files to another device in order to listen to the book.   Once the app is downloaded, the application walks you through setting up your account - chose the country, then enter your library card number at the prompt etc.  You can set up a variety of preferences in One Click; for instance you can set the application to download only through a wi-fi connection rather than using up a telephone data plan or automatically download when a book becomes available.   There are tutorials with simple instructions and pictures indicating actions.  Another feature for many of the audiobooks included in One Click is the option to listen to a portion of the book before actually checking it out.  Patrons are also able to search by narrator as well as by the usual author and title. 

            There are two distinct tabs in One Click, one for ebooks and one for audio which differs from Overdrive which requires filters to distinguish types of materials.  One Click was originally set up for audiobooks but now does offer a variety of ebooks, primarily fiction.  In Audiobooks there are more genres to select from - you can choose from African American Interest to Foreign Language Study, Mysteries, Political and Current Events to True Crime or Urban Fiction.  For the student, there is a collection of EngLits - audio summaries of well-know pieces of literature like "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Othello".  For best sellers like Martin's "Game of Thrones" or biographies like "Long Walk to Freedom" discover more books for your listening pleasure brought to you by Rowan Public Library.