Big Ideas. Bold Ventures: OverDrive

OverDrive digitizes and provides free access to ebooks, audiobooks and magazines.

OverDrive was founded with a simple, yet profound goal: A World Enlightened by Reading. The Cleveland-based company began in 1986, when founder and CEO Steve Potash created OverDrive as a way to accelerate and simplify access to information.  As an attorney, Steve first sought to digitize law books. As the possibilities of the internet and digital books evolved through the 1990s, he refocused the mission.

In 2002, Cleveland Public Library approached OverDrive about building one of the first ebook lending platforms for libraries, and OverDrive launched the service in 2003 with ebooks and added audiobooks in 2004.  This quickly grew to be the world’s largest digital service for libraries (through the Libby library reading app), and soon, schools (through the Sora student reading app), colleges and corporate and government organizations joined the OverDrive network.  OverDrive now serves 91,000 libraries and schools in 113 countries with a catalog of millions of digital titles. 