Overdrive adds reading history
Members who have requested to see lists of ebook/eaudio they’ve checked out will be happy to hear Overdrive has added Your History. When a member checks out a book, the title will automatically be added to the History. Members also have the option of adding titles manually. While members history lists aren’t shared with Overdrive or MLS, members who have privacy concerns are able to delete titles manually. There’s also an option to ‘hide’ history for those who simply don’t like clutter.
In addition to the website, Overdrive’s app Libby added two features to support reading history. Tags help organize books read, want to read, and ratings. Activity is a timeline feed of actions – books borrowed, returned, renewed, etc. Activity can be sorted.
Read Overdrive’s blog for more information.
Learn how History works here.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
Just like the catalog, it looks like the history is not retroactive.
I guess that's why they highlight the manual adding - I mean, who wouldn't want to spend an hour adding past read books? ;)
On the other hand, that's a good sign that they really aren't storing lists.
I don't see it on the OD catalog page currently but for a long time, OverDrive had a "Recommended for You" collection which was built from titles the user borrowed or put on hold, so they have been storing & using our activity & I assume by automatically opting everyone in to History, that's how they'll continue to do it going forward.
I think using activity is fair game; we use people's activity with the physical collection all the time. If people are really concerned about storing titles, I can ask Overdrive about it. My understanding was those recommended lists are built from an algorithm looking at metadata, not necessarily because Overdrive is storing a list that we could request (ie: I can't ask for your reading history list because they don't have it - or if they do, it's encrypted).
But I'm distrustful by nature so I don't entirely believe that.... *paranoid side eye*
The M.L.S. maintains a reading record of everyone with a Phone Type being a carrier or e-mail with an Email Status of Yes - Do send email via Notice History anyway, even when those same Patrons are not opted into Save my loan history. I assume that we rationalize with the fact that we have kept a loan history of titles with fines since Carl-X at least - I can't remember about VCircDesk. I'm leaning toward them vanishing when paid or removed.
I think that nowadays Patrons just understand that the lib. tracks lending histories, especially digital histories.