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Join our first national, bilingual, eBook club in January 2021

One Book Canada Un livrel Canada title beneath an iPad icon on the left side and on the right side written on a black background: One eRead Canada is a national, bilingual digital book club. This year's pick is Kim Thuy's celebrated novel, Vi. Join us Jan. 1 to Jan. 31!

By OPL_BPO_Comms

Dec 16, 2020

Start the new year the right way! Join One eRead Canada, the first national, bilingual (English and French) digital eBook club featuring the exquisite, celebrated novel Vi by Kim Thúy. Readers from St John’s to Nanaimo to Whitehorse along with more than 600 public libraries are taking part in this simultaneous reading party.

From January 1 to 31, 2021, 85 per cent of all public libraries in Canada, including OPL, are offering free, unlimited access to Vi by Kim Thúy, in eBook and eAudiobook formats. The book is available on Cloud, Overdrive and Cantook Station in both languages – without holds or waitlists – with nothing but your library card.

This masterful novel about the lives and experiences of Vietnamese refugees in Canada was a finalist for the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award in translation and longlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize. This is your chance to have a taste of Vi’s life; to read about her escape from Vietnam, to hear about her first love, and to witness her journey of self-discovery in a story that will take you across the globe from Vietnam to Canada to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Here's what Kim Thúy had to say about this initiative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WHxbBVvXLI

The author also participated in a live Q&A on Facebook on January 19 (in English) and January 20 (in French), to discuss some of the many themes that arise from this profoundly moving work. If you missed it, a recording of the events is available. You can still connect with readers across the country by joining the One eRead Canada Facebook Group or by using the hashtag #1eReadCanada. Every week in January, we post a question discussing the themes, characters, and overall impressions of the eBook.

In addition to being a bilingual, cross-country simultaneous reading experience, One eRead Canada underlines the Canadian Urban Libraries Council’s ongoing campaign, eContent for Libraries. Libraries want to work with the big publishers to establish fair pricing models that can benefit everyone and ensure equitable access to digital content such as eBooks and eAudiobooks. Collaborative library initiatives like One eRead Canada introduce readers and listeners to new books and authors, positively impacting sales of digital content – to the benefit of publishers, authors, and readers.

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Comments

One eRead Canada - Possible to answer these questions?

Submitted by apichora on January 2, 2021 - 3:36pm
(1)The second paragraph above states that "public libraries in Canada...will offer free, unlimited access" to Vi by Kim Thuy (the January 2021 book) in eBook and eAudio formats and that "The book will be available on Cloud, Overdrive and Cantook Station in both languages – without holds or waitlists – with nothing but your library card" and yet when I went into the OPL catalogue to request the eBook of Vi by Kim Thuy, edition 2016, the note on the catalogue page says that there are three copies available. If there are only three copies available at one specific time, that is not unlimited access as I presume that many OPL clients would request this eBook format to participate in this online book club. (2) Is there any way for the OPL client to ascertain how many copies of an eBook or eAudiobook there are in the OPL system as one can do with the other book formats?

Hi apichora!

Submitted by OPL_BPO_Comms on January 4, 2021 - 2:26pm
Hi apichora! We are working to correct the wrong catalogue link for the 2016 edition in French. If you go directly into Cantook Station and search for Vi, you will see copies of the eBook and eAudio are available. Overdrive and Cloud Express Library have all editions available. Cantook Station did not get access to the English versions however, despite our efforts. You can see the number of copies in our catalogue for the different formats from some of the platforms. It depends on the platform/catalogue integration enabled by the vendor. Often there may only be one copy.

Retour de livres

Submitted by victorhugo on January 18, 2021 - 10:49am
Je dois retourner des livres après 5 renouvellement. Personne n'en a fait la demande Puis-je simplement les rapporter, les montrer à la préposée et repartir?

Retour de livres

Submitted by OPL_BPO_Comms on January 20, 2021 - 5:14pm
Bonjour victorhugo, Les livres doivent être retournés après cinq renouvellements. Cette nouvelle limite sur les renouvellements fait en sorte que les articles peuvent être consultés et empruntés par tous les clients. Merci.