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Snapshot: DCL's digital branch

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First, see this useful and insightful Digital Shift piece about Douglas County Libraries' most recent purchase, featuring our very articulate and astute Collection Manager, Sharon Nemechek.

We were instructed by our board to develop a "digital branch." As of the beginning of 2013, our collection of digital content looks like this:

* Library owned and hosted content – 21,000 items (10,000 from Smashwords, 11,000 from midlist and independents)
* OverDrive – 9,748 items
* 3M – 6,200 items
* Project Gutenberg – 500 items
* Zinio - 160

Total: 37,608

Over the course of 2012, DCL spent almost $700,000 on digital content -- on top of what we already spend for print.

Bottom line: I'm pleased to say that we now own more ebooks than we lease (through OverDrive). We may be the only public library in the world that can make that claim.

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