I ran into someone last week who didn’t realize that Pocahontas County Free Libraries allows patrons to check out e-books and e-audiobooks through the website WVReads. My thinking is that if one person didn’t know, others may not either. Do you have a Kindle, Nook or some other device that allows you to read digital books? You can check out e-books through our WVReads web page. It’s easy, it’s free, and there are lots of books to choose from for both adults and children. If you go to our library web page at pocahontaslibrary. org, and click on the “Services” tab you will see a link for WVReads about halfway down the page. There are instructions there for creating an account with WVReads. You must have your library card number and you must create a PIN number from our card catalog page. Once you do that, you can go to WVReads and start browsing. WVReads gives you the opportunity to create a wish list of titles that you would like to check out someday. You can also put titles on hold that are currently checked out to someone else. You will receive email notification when your book is ready for you to download. You may select your borrowing time length, from one to three weeks, and you may check out a total of 10 digital items at one time. Handy tips: WVReads will ask you to select your library from a drop-down list when you log in. You must select “Greenbrier County” because we are part of a larger service area. Should you have any difficulty checking out an item, contact one of our branches. It may be something as simple as your library card is expired, or you may have a fine on your account. In either of those cases, WVReads will not circulate materials until the card is current and all fines are paid. Did you forget your PIN? Call us. We can’t tell you what your PIN was because when you created it, the system encoded your PIN and we can’t read it. But we can delete it, allowing you to create a new PIN. You can search for e-book titles in our card catalog, or go directly to the WVReads site and search there. You may notice that some books are not available in digital format. Sometimes this is because the publisher will not sell e-books to libraries. Some publishers, like HarperCollins, will sell them to us for a limited number of circulations, and then we must purchase the book again. And we are charged a much higher price for e-books than a regular consumer is charged. New bestsellers cost libraries between $70 and $100, so our e-book budgets don’t go quite as far. But I think we have a decent selection in spite of the difficulties we face in acquiring e-books. Visit WVReads, browse the site, and get started checking out digital books. If you need any help, please call us, and we’ll do our best to help.
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