Man Astonished to Check Out Illinois Library Book While in Northeastern PA

- From our Mid-Atlantic office
Joel Sawyer, 36, was undertaking an unexpected road trip with no audiobook to listen to. Then an idea occurred to him at the interchange between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 80: "I thought, I do have my tablet with me. Would it be possible to download an eaudiobook to it and listen to that on the way home?"

To find out, he pulled over into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant and used their wireless network to access the digital collection of the Des Plaines Public Library, linked from the eDPPL section of the library's website. Sawyer signed into the digital collection website (mymediamall.net for those keeping score at home) using his DPPL card and located a book he was interested in listening to. "Yeah, Inferno by Max Hastings. I figured I'm looking at 13 hours of driving, why not listen to an epic history of World War II, right?" Sawyer downloaded it and was on the road again in five minutes, the book speaking from his tablet.

Being able to check out a book three states from his home library was astounding to Sawyer, who stated that it was a mark of the 21st century. Overall, he was thrilled to now have a book to listen to on the long road trip, but there was a small drawback. "At first it was slow going because I needed to make adjustments to volume and other things, which meant I needed to pull over at a few exits. I wanted to be safe and responsible, you know?"