Digital Bookmobile makes stop at Sanger

A.J. Holmes plays a game while visiting the bookmobile while his grandmother, Dorcell Dowdell, middle, talks with worker Jamie Kelly.

They came, they saw, they learned a new skill.

The skill is to "download your favorite books, and music, and videos [from] the library," said Taylor Horen, 17, a recent Maumee Valley Country Day School graduate.

"And when you are done, you don't have to return them to the library," the freshman at John Carroll University in Cleveland said with a smile.

Miss Horen was one of about a dozen people of all ages who toured OverDrive Inc.'s Digital Bookmobile at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library's Sanger branch in West Toledo within the first half-hour that it was open yesterday.

The Digital Bookmobile - a 74-foot, 18-wheel tractor-trailer, equipped with broadband Internet-connected computers, and a variety of portable media players - ran from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the branch's parking lot at 3030 West Central Ave.

Tracy Montri, the manager of the audio-visual department at the library's main branch, said the library offers about 7,000 titles for download this year through OverDrive Inc., the library's downloadable media provider.

"We see a lot of kids walk around with iPods so we thought [the event] would be a good connection to make with young adults and kids," Ms. Montri said.

"But we also see more and more older adults use [computerized] gadgets. So it's for everybody," she said.

The free event was the first-ever stop for the bus in Toledo, organizers said.