2024 Annual Report Guide: 5 - Electronic Holdings Use

New Questions: IMLS has issued a new set of 22 questions intended to more clearly and accurately record electronic collections and usage. These are voluntary for this report, but we encourage libraries to complete them as this will help us make adjustments if needed. All but 4 are simple Yes/No questions, and the remaining simply break e-material circulation into e-books, e-serials, e-audio, and e-video. To reduce disruption, all of these have been placed in section 5.

 

Section 5: ELECTRONIC USE (previously called TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS)

5.1 Did the library provide access to e-books purchased solely by the library?

Answer yes if the library a) purchased ebooks via Overdrive Advantage or b) subscribed to other e-book services such as Hoopla, Freading, Tumblebooks, etc. 

5.2 Did the library provide access to e-books purchased via a consortium, cooperative, or other similar group at the local, regional, or state level?= YES

5.3 Did the library provide access to e-books provided by the New York State Library at no or minimal cost to the library?

Prefilled with No and locked. Not currently offered by the NYSL. 

5.4 Did the library provide access to e-serials purchased solely by the library?

Answer yes if the library subscribes to e-serials services such as Zinio. 

5.5 Did the library provide access to e-serials purchased via a consortium, cooperative, or other similar group at the local, regional, or state level = YES

5.6 Did the library provide access to e-serials provided by the New York State Library at no or minimal cost to the library?

Prefilled with No and locked. Not currently offered by the NYSL. 

5.7 Did the library provide access to e-audio purchased solely by the library?

Answer yes if the library a) purchased audiobooks via Overdrive Advantage or b) subscribed to other e-audio services such as Hoopla, Freegal, etc. 

5.8 Did the library provide access to e-audio purchased via a consortium, cooperative, or other similar group at the local, regional, or state level?= YES

5.9 Did the library provide access to e-audio provided by the New York State Library at no or minimal cost to the library?

Prefilled with No and locked. Not currently offered by the NYSL. 

5.10 Did the library provide access to e-videos purchased solely by the library?

Answer yes if the library subscribed to other e-video services such as Hoopla, Kanopy, etc. 

Note that Overdrive no longer offers video content. 

5.11 Did the library provide access to e-videos purchased via a consortium, cooperative, or other similar group at the local, regional, or state level? (Do not include New York State Library-provided content here; that should be entered in 5.12.)

Answer yes if the library provides a patron-facing NicheAcademy instance.  

5.12 Did the library provide access to e-videos provided by the New York State Library at no or minimal cost to the library?

Prefilled with No and locked. Not currently offered by the NYSL. 

5.13 Did the library provide access to research databases purchased solely by the library?

Answer yes if the library subscribed to any databases as an individual unit. Note that, per DLD, learning platforms are not counted in 5.13, even if they contain other resources that may be similar to a database. For example, LearningExpress Library, Tutor.com, and Universal Class are not counted in 5.13. Instead, they are accounted for in 5.16.

5.14 Did the library provide access to research databases purchased via a consortium, cooperative, or other similar group at the local, regional, or state level? = YES

5.15 Did the library provide access to research databases provided by the New York State Library at no or minimal cost to the library? = YES

5.16 Did the library provide access to online learning platforms purchased solely by the library?

Answer yes if the library subscribed to any learning platforms such as LinkedIn Learning, Universal Class, Brainfuse, Tutor.com, etc. on an individual basis.

5.17 Did the library provide access to online learning platforms purchased via a consortium, cooperative, or other similar group at the local, regional, or state level? = YES

5.18 Did the library provide access to online learning platforms provided by the New York State Library at no or minimal cost to the library? 

Prefilled with No and locked. Not currently offered by the NYSL. 

The others break E-Material Circulation (previously Question 4.12) into four components:

5.19 The total circulation of e-books during the reporting period.

Start with the Overdrive circulation number provided in the Annual Report Overdrive Statistics 2024 PDF provided at the bottom of this page. To this number, add ebook circulations from other platforms that have distinct checkout periods. See the chart below for guidance. 

5.20 The total circulation of e-serials during the reporting period.

Start with the Overdrive circulation number provided in the Annual Report Overdrive Statistics 2024 PDF provided at the bottom of this page. To this number, add e-serial circulations from other platforms that have distinct checkout periods. See the chart below for guidance. 

5.21 The total circulation of e-audio during the reporting period.

Start with the Overdrive circulation number provided in the Annual Report Overdrive Statistics 2024 PDF provided at the bottom of this page. To this number, add e-audio circulations from other platforms that have distinct checkout periods. See the chart below for guidance. 

5.22 The total circulation of e-videos during the reporting period.

Note that Overdrive no longer offers e-video and no video checkouts were recorded in the reporting period.  

Count e-video circulations from other platforms that have distinct checkout periods. See the chart below for guidance. 

Overdrive Advantage content checkouts are included in the provided statistics above. You do not need to run your own Overdrive Marketplace reports for those materials.

Sora is a service available via Overdrive that shares ebook and audiobook collections with local school districts. Circulation numbers are reportable via the Overdrive marketplace. However, in discussing Sora with DLD staff, they have instructed member libraries not to add Sora circulation numbers to their individual annual report answers. Their quote below:

That data [Sora] cannot be entered on a member report. Instead, those numbers should be part of the Public Library System report. Any numbers a member library reports should only be library-level data, distinct to that library.

The Sora numbers are provided here as an FYI only.