Hello,

I am writing today with news of significant changes in our library business and RBdigital.

You may have heard in December that our investor, KKR, announced its plan to acquire OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools. That acquisition was recently completed. KKR’s investment and efforts represent its deep and ongoing commitment to offering the best products and services to customers in the public library, K-12 school, academic library and corporate digital content sectors.

Many libraries have told us that they would benefit from having Recorded Books and other RBmedia content broadly available on the OverDrive platform and would welcome a reduction in the effort required to manage collection development and patron support on their digital platforms. With these goals in mind, OverDrive will acquire the assets of our library business, including the RBdigital platform in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia. Over the coming months, all RBdigital customers will be migrated to the OverDrive platform which will be enhanced to deliver additional Recorded Books audiobooks. Moreover, OverDrive will be exploring the addition of popular RBdigital services like digital magazines from our partner ZINIO, to the OverDrive platform. After the customer and patron migration is complete, the RBdigital platform will be discontinued.

There will be a transition period as we work with OverDrive to complete this migration work. We are committed to working closely with you and the OverDrive team to make this transition successful for your staff and community.

Please note that there will be no change to RBmedia’s market-leading publishing businesses, which will continue to supply their titles to libraries and direct-to-consumer services worldwide. These brands include Recorded Books, Tantor Media, HighBridge, Kalorama Audio, ChristianAudio, Gildan Media, GraphicAudio, W.F. Howes in the United Kingdom, and Wavesound in Australia.

What’s next

 
Your Recorded Books account team and a member of OverDrive’s team will be in touch in the coming weeks to provide details about the transition and to begin the process with you. We will provide an official “handoff” to your OverDrive account team at some point along the way. The teams will provide you with communication templates and marketing materials to let your staff and communities know about this change. 

If you’re already an OverDrive customer, you are most likely aware of the strengths of its industry-leading platform, and now you can enjoy the benefit of streamlining your vendors and accessing the best RBmedia content on Libby and the OverDrive platform.  If you’re not already working with OverDrive, you can learn more about the award-winning Libby app, one of PCMag’s Best Free Software of 2019, the send-to-Kindle feature, as well as their industry-leading catalog and service on their website.

 
We understand that this is a challenging time for libraries, which has resulted in unprecedented demand for digital services. I want to reiterate that we are committed to working closely with you and the OverDrive team to make this transition successful for you with as little disruption as possible. Please reach out to your account team or me if you have any questions.

Jim Schmidt

Senior VP, Sales

Recorded Books/RBdigital