WCPL Video Tutorial: Hit or Miss?

The Wake County Public Library system has a YouTube channel that includes some quick and dirty video tutorials. The most recent is this one, Downloading a library eBook on an Android tablet.

This is definitely a timely and relevant topic as eBooks are gaining momentum right now, and for a 2 minute tutorial, the video was quite adequate. It took you through the process, start to finish with some minor editing. It hit all of the major points for how to download an eBook through Overdrive.

A few things I would change:

• The tutorial assumed people were intimately familiar with the Android tablet and skipped steps like how to find and download the Overdrive app in the marketplace.
• There were a few screens of information that he had to hit the Close button on and he didn’t say a word about what those screens were.
• He didn’t tell you how to search the Overdrive site for books. He said, “I’m going to quickly find an eBook that’s checked in so I can walk you through the download process.” And then… the video cut to the search results.
• He glossed over authorizing the device with an Adobe ID in order to download from Overdrive. For less tech-savvy individuals (and yes, I know several who own tablets) this would be very confusing.
• He did not explain if the eBook will automatically be “returned” after the checkout period is over, even though he explained how to manually return it.

Overall, the tutorial works for those who are familiar with the technology, just not this particular process. But if it’s meant to teach those who are less than comfortable with technology, it falls short.