Demand for e-books is increasing as more people are purchasing or receiving their first e-book reader. Customers face challenges when it comes to downloading and transferring e-books to their portable device. Typical problems include not knowing what type of file their device accepts, what they need to download from Overdrive, and where to find their e-book once it is transferred. Librarians were spending a lot of time answering the same questions, and finding it difficult to explain over the phone.

The Library purchased a screen-casting program for less than $85 that captures screen movements on the computer. Voice-over narration guides the customer through the steps while visually showing them how to download e-books. The final video tutorial is now available on the Library’s Blog, there is a link from the Library’s main website, and a bookmark for customers.

Since posting the video tutorial on the Library’s blog in January, 2011, there have been 59 views of the tutorial. Librarians are saving time by pointing people to the video, and customers are able to download e-books easily after viewing it. Video tutorials are beneficial for visual learners and are especially effective for teaching people how to accomplish multi-step processes on the computer. As an added bonus, now that the Library has the capability to make screen-casts, we have created other video tutorials: downloading audio-books, accessing databases, and freezing holds.