Nelson City Council

Access Overdrive now

Bookmark ebooks.nelsonpubliclibraries.co.nz web address to access Overdrive collection at any time 24/7.

What is Overdrive?

OverDrive is a free digital media platform which allows you to download e-books and audiobooks.

Members of Nelson Public Libraries can access Overdrive through the South Island Downloadable Zone - a consortium of a number of South Island libraries, which includes Nelson, Marlborough and Tasman.

What do you get?

 The South Island Downloadable zone currently has a selection of adult fiction e-books and audio titles. This collection will soon expand to include non-fiction, young adults and children's material. New titles are regularly added.

Nelson Public Libraries has also purchased a collection of e-book titles which are only available to Nelson Public Library members - our Advantage collection.

To see these titles you must sign in to Overdrive with your library barcode and PIN. Browse all subjects (Non-fiction titles are included in this collection) and look out for this icon.

What you will need

• An internet (or WI-FI) connected computer or mobile device (note you cannot use computers in the library to download Overdrive titles, but you can use our FREE wifi to download to your mobile device)
• Your Nelson Public Libraries card
• FREE software for PC or Mac:   Adobe Digital Editions (eBooks) and/or  OverDrive Media Console (audiobooks) - available from the Overdrive downloadable media homepage.
• FREE software for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android -  available from the Apple App Store or Android market . Overdrive's Audiobook app is also linked from Overdrive's homepage.

Which e-Reader?

Try our new online tool to find out

What you can do

• Download e-books or audio titles from home at any time.
• Transfer e-book titles to your computer or portable devices such e-book readers and smartphones. E-books are compatible with most e-book readers and mobile devices except Kindles.
• Transfer audio titles to your computer or portable devices such as an MP3 player or iPod.
• Burn some audio book titles to disc.
• Avoid extended loan charges — the items self expire or you can check in e-books early if you have finished with them.

More information

• Quick Start Guide - checklist of what you need to do, with links to more information and resources you need
• Information about devices which are compatible with Overdrive titles
• Guided tour - a tutorial on how to use Overdrive 

Project Gutenberg - more e-books

More than 20, 000 more e-books are now available through Overdrive - with the addition of Project Gutenberg titles.  Click onto this icon on the left of the screen to access the titles:
What is it about?

• This is a separate collection of eBooks from our OverDrive collection.
• The collection contains more than 20,000 titles.
• You do NOT need to sign in to download public domain titles.
• Hover your mouse over a book cover for more information about the title. 
• Checkouts from the collection do NOT count against your checkout limit, which is currently 5 items.
• Titles are always available, offering unlimited simultaneous access.
• These titles do not expire - so you can have them out until you choose to remove them from your device.
• The collection uses Adobe Digital Editions software - the same you currently use OverDrive eBooks.
• The ‘tips’ link at the top of the collection provides instructions on how to download public domain titles.