OverDrive Releases Usage Statistics For First Eight Months of 2012

In an announcement about the upcoming launch of OverDrive Read (their web-based reading solution) later this year, the company included some new usage statistics for the first eight months of 2012. OverDrive provides ebooks to 19,000 libraries and schools.

OverDrive library network data for the first eight months of 2012 (Jan. 1 – Aug. 31):
+ Total OverDrive library catalog visits: 34.8 million
+ Library catalog page views:  1.82 billion
+ Average pages viewed per visit: 13.82
+ Average time spent browsing or searching per visit:  9:46
+ Book cover images viewed: 5.4 billion (est.)
+ eBook samples viewed since OverDrive Read introduced (early Sept.): up 783% from March

It would be great if OverDrive would provide some context to these “totals” as well as breakouts by library/school type and location.
For example:

• Are users visiting nearly 14 pages per visit and spending close to 10 minutes browsing/searching because the titles they want are not available (for one of a number of reasons) or users have poor searching skills?
• What constitutes a page view?
• What constitutes a cover image viewed? For example, if a results page contains 10 cover images, does each image on the page count as an image view?

See Also: OverDrive Read (Sample Title)
See Also: Want to View More Sample Titles?
Start with this Google Search. If you like rerun the search and add terms to search box. Here’s an example.
Samples contain up to 10% of the book and do not require a user to checkout the title.

Filed under: Data Files, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users