Number Of Electronic Books Increasing With Demand At Tulsa County Library

Many people are expecting tablets and e-readers this Christmas.

While many people only use them to buy books, there are plenty of books they can get for free if they have a library card.

The Tulsa Library is loaded with books, but there's an increasing trend toward patrons never visiting the stacks and getting books electronically.

And as more people ask for books they can get online, the selection is growing.

Librarian Kelly Brayles said, "We want to provide those materials for people because the demand is only getting bigger."

She said it's easy once people understand the process.

"We have several apps, the Overdrive app, the Freading app,” she said.

And librarians are there to help people find and check out electronic books.

"Pretty much every device you have we're going to be able to work with it," Brayles said.

The biggest complication is the variety of devices, but there's really only two formats of books - the one for Kindle, the other for every other kind of screen.

The most popular app is called Overdrive, and that's what most people use at the Tulsa library.

Learn More About The Apps

In the last year, the library's circulation came to just over 5 million physical books and 540,000 electronic books.

“We have everything available for you. You don't have to pay out of your pocket for your books because, chances are, we have it,” Brayles said.

She said the newest technology makes checkout even simpler; it's a code most devices can scan for an instant download.

Right now it's limited to older books, but there's a way to get almost any recent book on the screen of almost any device - and librarians are still around to help guide the process.