Free E-Book Service For All Illinois Residents During Pandemic

Press release from RAILS:

Dec. 9, 2020

Everyone in Illinois now has access to thousands of e-books and more, without the need of a library card. Public libraries statewide offer free e-books for the over 12 million Illinois residents and anyone else in the state, through a partnership between the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) and BiblioLabs. The e-book service, called BiblioBoard, has nearly 40,000 items available at any time to anyone in the state, and the items are always available.

RAILS began offering the BiblioBoard service in 2017 to help libraries offer additional e-resources to their users and to reach the approximately one million Illinois residents that live in areas not served by a public library. The pandemic has increased the demand for e-resources exponentially. Whether or not someone has a library card, people were affected when many physical library buildings went through periods of limited or no access during the pandemic, resulting in a bigger need for easy access to digital materials.

Leila Heath, RAILS Library Resource and Programs Manager, said, “E-books and other digital materials have seen a huge uptick in usage since the pandemic began. With many people working or attending school from home and unable to participate in the many social activities that may have occupied their time under normal circumstances, digital media has unsurprisingly seen a huge growth spurt.”

A report published by RAILS, “The Impact of COVID-19 Related Closures on Library E-Content Usage,” shows that library e-book usage almost doubled in April 2020 from the average daily usage in the months prior to the start of the pandemic.

Potential users of BiblioBoard have easy access to available content through links on libraries’ websites, or by going to iIllinois.biblioboard.com. Content includes local community histories, self-help resources, cookbooks, classics with beautifully reimagined covers, kids’ books, community collections by RAILS libraries, books on equity, diversity, and inclusion, graphic novels, and much more.

Illinois libraries are much more than buildings. In addition to BiblioBoard, many libraries offer additional e-resources for all ages, including a wide variety of e-books, audiobooks, digital magazines, etc. Contact your local library to find out more about their specific offerings.

The Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) provides delivery between libraries across a 27,000 square mile area, shared online catalogs, e-book services, continuing education for library staff, and other leadership services and support to academic, public, school, and specialized libraries in northern and western Illinois. More information about RAILS is available at railslibraries.info.

This press release was produced by RAILS. The views expressed here are the author's own.