Digital Library Services

The Toronto Public Library has two collections of electronic audiobooks (eAudiobooks): OverDrive and OneClickdigital. For many years, these eAudiobooks have been available to download and play on personal computers, mp3 players, iPods, smartphones and tablets. Now these eAudiobooks can be streamed on computers and mobile devices as well.  

Streaming audiobooks are played in an Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc.). OverDrive or OneClickdigital software are not needed. However, as the audiobooks have not been downloaded to the computer or device, streaming does require a constant Internet connection.

OverDrive: The streaming feature in OverDrive is called OverDrive Listen. Using the OverDrive Listen format, eAudiobooks can now be borrowed and played right in the browser of a library or home computer or mobile device.

After checking out an audiobook, click on the Listen button instead of the Download button. Then click on the Play button. At this time, not all eAudiobooks are available in this new format.

OneClickdigital: Streaming is available on all eAudiobooks in the OneClickdigital Collection. After clicking on the "Checkout Now!" button, click the play button located below the book cover. Another option is to click on the Chapters tab and click on the first chapter.

For customers using mobile devices, using cellular data for streaming or downloading is not recommended as multimedia content can consume a lot of bandwidth. All 100 branches of the Toronto Public Library offer free Wi-Fi.

User Guides are available to download for both these collections. For OverDrive, there is a general Getting Started with Audiobooks guide for those who want to download to their computers and transfer to an mp3 player or an iPod. For mobile device users, there are guides for using OverDrive on Apple and Android devices. There is also a new guide for using the OneClickdigital eAudiobook collection.