Tuesday 14 August 2018

Overdrive Libraries in South Africa

I've blogged here about Overdrive before, specifically, the Gauteng E-Library. It's an awesome free way to read e-books and listen to audiobooks.

Someone posted in a reader's group on Facebook over the weekend, asking about Overdrive. She's in KwaZulu-Natal, and wanted to know how it worked.

With that in mind, here's a list of all the provincial libraries in South Africa that belong to Overdrive. You're welcome.

Note: These are all the South African provincial libraries I've been able to find on Overdrive. There may be others, so if you know of any, please comment below, and I'll update the list.

There are also quite a few private and school libraries on Overdrive in South Africa, and the company you work for may have corporate libraries as well. When it doubt, ask someone.

In terms of how to borrow books from a South African provincial e-library, The way it works in Gauteng is, if you have a card to any library anywhere in Gauteng, you have access to the Gauteng Library's Overdrive site. I don't see why it wouldn't work that way for the other provinces as well.


However, your card does need to have been issued fairly recently (probably within the last three years or so). I know this because when I was first trying to access Overdrive, before I got my own card, I tried my mom's card--which was issued yonks ago--and it didn't work. Then I got my own card, and about a month later, it was active on the Gauteng library site. My new card looks very different from that old one of my mom's I was trying, and the length of the number is different, too.

So it's probably just that you need to have a library card that was issued after the various provinces started using Overdrive.

What about you? Have you been able to borrow e-books or audiobooks from your local Overdrive library? Please comment below if you have; maybe your experiences will help others, too.

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