The Overdrive nonsense continues. Overdrive, for those who may not be aware, is a vendor that provides access to ebooks and audiobooks for library patrons to check out, similar to print library books.

I’ve been pretty critical of them in the past. I wish they had improved enough to warrant some good words. One of the biggest criticisms I have of them is that their site does not allow users to automatically search or browse available ebooks or audiobooks. In other words, there is no easy way to just look at ebooks or audiobooks that are available to check out. Instead, this inane approach of theirs forces users to check each and every ebook or audiobook to see if it is checked out or not. Think of a “real” library experience where this issue doesn’t even exist.

Well, imagine my pleasant surprise when I noticed that their mobile site recently was enhanced to include this feature. The photo below is a screenshot taken from my iPhone to show what this looks like. My pleasant surprise quickly faded to irritation when it became obvious that this feature was implemented only for keyword search, not browse. How lame is that? It is hard for me to comprehend how the persons who thought this up and implemented it could possibly think this was a fix? Overdrive, if you are listening, please, please put more thought into feature enhancements in the future. Especially try to think of how regular library users might use your service. You have clearly not done your homework.