This acquisition, to which a budget of 390,000 euros has been dedicated, responds to the sharp increase in the use of eBiblio during the state of alarm, with the aim of facilitating access to this service to a greater number of citizens.
In the coming days, as the autonomous communities carry out the dumping of these new licenses provided by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, citizens will have access to these new licenses, which means access to 507 new titles, of which 337 are for adults. and 170 for youth and children. Regarding the genre of the new titles, the purchase of licenses for novels (the most demanded genre), comics, and various works of fiction and non-fiction for adults, youth and children have been prioritized. Among them, the purchase of 29 easy-to-read titles stands out, with which it is intended to bring eBiblio to all kinds of readers.
Increased use of eBiblio during alarm status
During the months of March and April, the free online electronic book loan service eBiblio experienced a notable increase in use due to the exceptional situation caused by the state of alarm. In these two months eBiblio has made 794,797 loans, which represents 69.1% of the total loans made in 2020. Regarding new users registered in 2020 (121,701 new registrations), 80.5% registered during the months of March and April.
On the other hand, the number of visits to the eBiblio website during the first four months of 2020 reached a total of 3,498,679, of which 75.6% were made during the months of March and April (2,646. 362 visits).
Simultaneous use of licenses of new licenses
The Ministry of Culture and Sports has reached an agreement with the publishers that market the titles so that, exceptionally and due to the situation derived from the state of alarm, most of these new licenses are offered in concurrent use modality.
In this mode of use, several readers can simultaneously have the same license, thus avoiding waiting to be able to read the same book.
Until now the licenses that were purchased were for consecutive use: each license offered a certain number of uses and allowed that only one user at a time could borrow that title, until the number of uses was exhausted.
eBiblio, a free e-book loan service
This is the free loan service for e-books from public libraries coordinated and promoted by the Ministry of Culture and Sports in collaboration with all the autonomous communities (except the Basque Country, which has its own platform). All the Autonomous Communities, except Melilla, are offering access to eBiblio without having to have a library card, a requirement until now essential to use the service. For this, most of the Communities have enabled a temporary 'virtual card' to be able to enjoy eBiblio while the Alarm status lasts.
The Ministry of Culture and Sports makes the eBiblio platform (for the management of the service) and a common fund of titles available to the communities, and the autonomous communities adapt and increase the collection depending on the interests and particularities of its users.
Access to the eBiblio service can be done through any device with the applications for Android and IOS and through the eBiblio websites of the autonomous communities.
