OverDrive Funding Paused

From: Missouri Independent, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins

By Gretchen Garrity

OverDrive is one of the largest purveyors of online ebooks and magazines. It includes the Libby app, which is available at the Christian County Library.

You can read about it HERE. FTA: "Any Christian County Library cardholder--including children--can download the Libby app. Libby is owned by a company named OverDrive (Steve Potash is the founder and CEO), one of the largest purveyor of ebooks and audiobooks in the business. According to an archived New Yorker article, An App Called Libby and the Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-Books, "It is the company behind the popular app Libby, which, as the Apple App Store puts it, “...lets you log in to your local library to access ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines, all for the reasonable price of free. OverDrive also offers Sora, a program geared toward students and available at participating schools."

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has paused state funding for OverDrive, according to the Missouri Independent "...until it can prove that it has as safeguards barring children from accessing inappropriate content. The action comes after a Missouri Senate committee heard a bill last week seeking regulation of digital library catalogs, alleging Overdrive-run app Sora allows minors to access explicit sexual material."

This is great news and bodes well for protecting Missouri's minor children from age-inappropriate and sexually explicit materials in public libraries.