20 Jun 2024
This might be a strange concept for citizens of others countries but in the UK, resources from your local library are not seen as exclusively for the tax payers for that council. You can join any library in England just by showing your proof of address to a librarian and asking for a library card. Some councils will say that you can use the library if you live, work or study in the area but nobody will ever question why you want to join a library. They’ll just be happy you joined.
Overdrive is the dominant eBook and Audiobook borrowing system in England. Behind that is BorrowBox, a system with a user interface that is almost exactly the same but is not compatible at all. Overdrive and its app, Libby, lets you link multiple library cards to your account and borrow items from any of them. Because it has become a mild obsession, I will now discuss libraries, library consortiums and Overdrive libraries for several paragraphs.
In the UK there are some councils that have decided to join their libraries together into a library consortium. Basically all the councils in the consortium agree to pool resources, so residents anywhere in the consortium get access to the same catalogue. These can be spread quite far geographically. So far the consortiums I have found that cover London, as well as individual council libraries are:
| Name | Areas | Overdrive Catalogue | Other Services |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Libraries Consortium | Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Essex, Hackney, Hammersmith, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, Lewisham, Luton, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Surrey, Sutton, Thurrock, Tower Hamlets, Redbridge, Waltham Forest | 100,000 | Kanopy (Essex and Redbridge only) |
| Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Libraries Consortium | Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster | 38,000 | |
| Better Libraries Consortium | Bromley, Dudley, Greenwich, Lincolnshire, Wandsworth | 31,000 | Freegal |
| City of London Libraries | City of London | 27,000 | |
| Barnet Libraries | Barnet | 24,000 | Freegal |
| Lambeth Libraries | Lambeth | 15,000 | Kanopy |
| Richmond Libraries | Richmond | 15,000 | |
| Bexley Libraries | Bexley | 13,000 | |
| Southwark Libraries | Southwark | 11,000 | Kanopy |
| Islington Libraries | Islington | 6,000 | |
| Hillingdon Libraries | Hillingdon | 1,900 |
The extra services I’ve chose to include are Kanopy and Freegal. Freegal is a way to download and stream music with your library card. All of the libraries in the Better Libraries Consortium have access to Freegal, as well as Barnet, Portsmouth Central and Suffolk. Kanopy is a TV, documentary and movie streaming service, again using your library card. Kanopy is available from Southwark Libraries, Lambeth Libraries, Windsor and Maidenhead Libraries Consortium, Newport Libraries, Suffolk Libraries and if you sign up to The Libraries Consortium in Redbridge or Essex.
Freegal and Kanopy are both interesting in their own ways. Freegal lets you download or stream music. The selection isn’t as good as Spotify but the option to download albums intrigued me, as I tend to buy albums and play the MP3s from my phone rather than use a streaming service. The streaming and downloading is limited per week, and how much you you are allowed of each varies by library/consortium. Barnet gives you 3 downloads and 3 hours streaming per week, Greenwich gives you 3 downloads and 6 hours streaming per week, Portsmouth gives you 5 downloads and 5 hours streaming per week, and finally Suffolk gives you a massive 5 downloads and unlimited streaming per week. I’ve actually got library cards from all of these councils so I wrote a Python program to help me manage my weekly downloads. The first album I downloaded was “Get to Heaven” from Everything Everything, a good record that I got completely for free!
Kanopy gives you a certain amount of “tickets” per week, and to watch anything on the service you need to “buy” it with your “tickets”, and then you have a limited time to watch it. The content is very much geared to students and educators, with a lot of documentaries. There’s also a decent selection of world cinema, short films and quite a few older films. My watchlist at the moment includes films such as Donnie Darko, Oldboy, The Ring and Black Hawk Down, with television shows such as The Thick of It and Small Axe included. Considering all you need is a library card I think it represents decent value and the selection of educational and children’s shows I should think would please parents as well.