by Brandt A. Ensor, Assistant Executive Director, Adams County Library System
One of the questions I receive often is what does the Gettysburg Library do for the other branches of the Adams County Library System? Why is this one library building in the county seat so important to people living in Gardners, Abbottstown, or McKnightstown? We have explored this topic a few times in this column this year, from new books being aquired and processed for circulation, to delivery of materials to all 6 branches, to the need to coordinate children’s and adult events around the county. I wanted to inform you today about a very exciting new resource that we will be offering starting on June 1, 2022.
One of the items that the Administrative and Public Services team does regularly to benefit the whole county is to look at the electronic resources we purchase and keep in touch with the mergings of the industry. I mean merging in many different ways, including what is new and interesting in the library electronic world and what is happening with the companies who continually merge together. Through our attendance at various state and national library conferences, we keep abreast of the new possibilities that are out there and how they might better the online library experience of Adams Countians of all ages. We also continually look at the use statistics of our electronic resources to make sure our limited budget for these resources is used to the highest potential.
With that in mind, I get to be the first to inform you of a new and exciting change coming to one of our core electronic resources starting on June 1, 2022. Don’t worry, CloudLibrary isn’t going anywhere! CloudLibrary is far and away the most used electronic resource we have by a large number. No we aren’t throwing in the towel on CloudLibrary, we are actually adding to the services it provides and we are really looking forward to it.
You may be aware that for most of the last decade we have had an electronic resource named Flipster. Flipster is an electronic magazine service which provides current and back issues of popular magazines with the only requirement being that you must have your library card number to view them, just as all electronic resources require. Flipster requires that we purchase access to specific magazines title by title. We spent every year seeing what circulated and what didn’t and made our buying purchases for the next year based off of that. Some of the decisions were really hard and price prevented us from offering some of the magazines we really wanted to offer.
The good news is that now Bibliotheca, the parent company of CloudLibrary offers CloudLibrary Newstand, an online magazine product that links from the CloudLibrary app. The product also has its own app available in the Appstore under the same name. Here’s what’s available from CloudLibrary Newstand:
- Unlimited and instant access to over 7,000 U.S. and International Magazines including Forbes, Us Weekly, Vanity Fair, Good Housekeeping, and so much more. Some are available in foreign languages and titles can be sorted by foreign language.
- No holds and no wait on new and back issues.
- Full simultaneous use (meaning two patrons can be viewing the same magazine and volume at the same time!)
- Most magazine publishers are included. More are being added all the time.
- All for a much less expensive price than Flipster!
There are a few publishers still not available in CloudLibrary Newstand, most famously the publishers of People Magazine. For those who currently read People on Flipster, all six branches will continue to receive it in person and we hope that CloudLibrary Newstand will add that publisher in the future. People has continually been the highest circulating magazine we carried on Flipster, but honestly the breadth of additional magazines CloudLibrary Newstand has compared to what we could afford at Flipster along with the ability to have one app for CloudLibrary and CloudLibrary Newstand was too good of a deal to pass up. We can spend the savings from Flipster on other collection needs, and provide over 6,950 more titles than we could afford at Flipster. To me it’s a great deal!
To that end, access to Flipster will continue to be available on a title by title basis within Flipster as the subscriptions on there expire. Flipster will be fully retired and not available to use by the end of 2022. Access to CloudLibrary Newstand will be available via the app of the same name or the link within the CloudLibrary app itself beginning on June 1st. Additional promotional materials will be promoted on the library website and social media leading up to launch day on June 1st. Visit www.adamslibrary.org for the link and more information on that date. We encourage you all to take a look and enjoy the wider electronic magazine offerings available with this great new service. Can’t wait to see you at the library this Summer!