HUNTINGTON -- We know that Cleveland rocks, and evidently so does their bookmobile.

Cleveland-based OverDrive, the top company providing download services for eBooks, audiobooks, music and videos, is touring the nation with its high-tech Digital Bookmobile.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, the 74-foot-long, 18-wheeler will be one of the main attractions as the Cabell County Public Library celebrates National Friends of the Library Week with a block party.

Equipped with broadband Internet-connected PCs, high-def monitors, premium sound systems and a variety of portable media players, the Digital Bookmobile gives visitors an opportunity to search the digital media collection, use supported mobile devices, and sample eBooks, audiobooks, music and video from the library.

Organized by the library's popular services coordinator Ralph Oppenheim, the block party (which will be rain or shine) will feature a bunch of activities including live music from the Fourpole Creek String Band, Marcia Murphy's bluegrass band, food from Hillbilly Hotdogs, a face painter, book signings by local authors, children's craft and story times, stories by Gaylord Cooper and the Eastern Kentucky Storyteller Guild (at 1:30 p.m.), a Huntington Fire Department firetruck for kids to explore and an 11 a.m. presentation on ghost hunting by the Huntington Paranormal Research Group.

Oppenheim said they've been trying to book the 80,000 pound digital bookmobile for some time and finally caught it crisscrossing the country.

The world's only Digital Bookmobile makes its way from Huntington to Cincinnati and then Nashville.

Oppenheim said the truck is so big that they're having to put it down 9th Street, between 5th and 6th avenues.

Judy Rule, director of the Cabell County Public Library, said the bookmobile's visit is a great way to let the public know about the library's ever-increasing cache of downloadable books -- something the library has been offering for not quite a year.

Nationally, the trend is skyrocketing and Cabell County's Pubic Library system is one of about 5,400 public libraries now offering eBooks as well as digitally downloaded audio books.

OverDrive reported that it has had more than 1 million checkouts of electronic books so far in 2009, according to an Oct. 15 story in The New York Times.

"It is one of the new programs that has steadily grown," Rule said. "We see that more people download books every month and that is what we want to see. I have seen programs start off big and then after a while wind down to nothing. We'd rather them start off slow and build up, and that is what we have seen with the downloadable books each month ... We like it because the books automatically come back, and that is lovely."

Before or after a tour of the Bookmobile, patrons can walk across the street and apply for a library card so that they can start downloading immediately from the library's growing collection of best selling, new release and classic titles.

Visitors can also enter a raffle to win an mp3 device.

Rule said the timing for the visit could not be better since the library was planning on a block party celebration of National Friends of the Library Week anyway.

"It was coming and it just so happened that it was National Friends week," Rule said. "We wanted to do something special when the bookmobile was here on that day, so we thought we would do all of this other stuff at the same time. There's tons of stuff we have going on."

Go online at www.cabell.lib.wv.us for more info and go online at www.digitalbookmobile.com.

The Herald-Dispatch

The world’s only Digital Bookmobile will make an appearance at the Cabell County Public Library from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24. The Digital Bookmobile is a community outreach vehicle for public libraries to promote downloadable eBooks, audiobooks, music and video.

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