Steve Thomas: Jason, welcome to the podcast.
Jason Tyrell: Thanks so much, Steve. It’s really great to be with you today.
Steve Thomas: Before we talk about your role at Overdrive working with the library market, I’m just curious of what your experience was with libraries growing up.
Jason Tyrell: It was significant. The library was definitely a center of our community. I grew up in a small town sort of a suburb, rural town in New Jersey. And I was at the library multiple times a week. I was a huge reader as a kid. I still remember discovering a box of my dad’s science fiction paperback books under a staircase in our house growing up and sort of tore through it over a summer and that was my introduction to like Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein and all those great science fiction classics that came out of the fifties and sixties. When I got through it, it’s like, “Okay, where do I go from here?” And the library was one of the places that I went. Just countless hours, you know, pouring over books at the library.
I come from the pre-internet generation where if I needed an answer to a question, it was either in the encyclopedia on the bookshelf, or I was at the library and firing up the microfiche machine. So it was a sort of central piece of my childhood and all through school.
Steve Thomas: So you remember the feel of the card catalog under your fingers?
Jason Tyrell: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I’ll never forget it. And the Dewey Decimal system is your friend?
Steve Thomas: Yep. And I think most of the people listening are library people, but just to make sure and give us a baseline, could you tell listeners what Overdrive is?
Jason Tyrell: Yeah, absolutely. Overdrive is one of the largest providers of digital media to institutions globally. The company was founded about 30 years ago out of Cleveland, Ohio. Steve Potash is our founder and CEO, still with the company, one of the biggest proponents of libraries I’ve ever met, super inspiring. Overdrive has a massive digital library: eBooks, audiobooks, comics, magazines, over 5 million titles.
Kanopy is our video product with over 40,000 films and television series. We also have a reading app. Most folks know Overdrive because of Libby, which is our flagship application of available in, say, 90 plus percent of public libraries in North America, and it’s just absolutely beloved by readers. Kanopy has a similar feeling for film fans and cinephiles.
We also have a digital reading app called Sora that’s utilized in over 4,000 K – 12 schools throughout the world. And we have another application called TeachingBooks, which is just effectively a really powerful metadata and tools repository for early childhood education and books.
So all told you put all these pieces together and we really look at ourselves as, effectively the digital arm of public libraries, academic libraries, institutions of all types. And we have applications and users in over 113 countries today.
Steve Thomas: Very cool. And I know you came into the company through Kanopy. Can you talk about how you first came to work for Kanopy?
Jason Tyrell: I did, yeah. My background is in film and television distribution. I’ve been in business development and strategic partnerships on the film side of digital media for about 17 years working in film acquisitions originally, moving onto the platform side.
Prior to Kanopy, I was employee number three at a tech startup that was building a direct to consumer platform for film and television distribution, and we had a mission-driven goal. While we were there, the mandate was to democratize access to distribution for independent content creators globally, and that’s sort of what got me outta bed in the morning for the three years we were building there.
When I moved on from that opportunity and was kind of looking at what’s next, a friend had reached out to let me know that Kanopy was looking for someone to head up the content team. So I did some research. I was aware of Kanopy. I had actually sold films to Kanopy for the past 10 years or so in various capacities, so I was definitely familiar with the library market and the education market, not nearly as much as I am now, but I was aware of Kanopy.
As I was digging in and doing my research, something I saw on the website really stuck out to me, which is that Kanopy’s mission was to democratize access to thoughtful entertainment regardless of economic situation, and that really resonated. When I think about libraries and the power of libraries, it’s really a place for both collaborative and self-directed lifelong learning. And in some instances, the library and the digital resources you get from your library may be the only avenue that you have to access these materials.
So the idea of, in a world where independent theaters are disappearing and independent video stores are basically a thing of the past, you could picture a passionate film fan in say like, rural Nebraska, there may be no other avenue to discover a classic film or an important documentary other than Kanopy. So I found that really inspiring. And after I met the team, I was even sort of further impassioned about the mission and what we could create.
Steve Thomas: Then this past fall, Overdrive announced the formation of the new content group which integrated Kanopy with other digital collections, and that also included your move to your current Executive Vice President role. What was the driving force behind that reorganization and what impact do you hope it’ll have on libraries and schools?
Jason Tyrell: That’s a great question. The driving force really came from our understanding of how patron behavior is changing and about how the role of the library is changing. You know, when I was growing up and using the microfiche machine, the library to me was a place of research. Now we all walk around with the most powerful research device ever created in our pockets.
Now, it’s unreliable. I would still love to be going to the librarian at the counter for those answers, but it is what it is, right? So how the role of libraries is evolving is tied to the way that patron interests are evolving and the way that patrons engage with digital media is evolving.
So what we had seen over the past several years is, especially as digital natives sort of grow into their adulthood people are very adept at self-serving deeper dives into areas of interest, and they’re less precious about the format of that deep dive. So in other words, if you’re passionate about a subject, let’s say, climate change or if you’re passionate about global politics, yes, you’re going to read a book about that subject, but you’re also going to go find out what podcast is available, where that author is speaking. What’s the film adaptation in a documentary about that subject matter, short form videos, behind the scenes content. Different formats come and ebb and flow and through people’s interests.
We realized we had an opportunity to help users along that journey by aligning this massive catalog we have and starting to bring more of those connections together. So instead of saying, you know, videos over here and books are over there, it’s really all knowledge and it’s really all media, and how can we get those media types to start talking to one another in a more ingrained way.
So that’s really the motivation behind this. It’s about empowering our patrons and our users on a path to their self-driven discovery that can take them sort of effectively through Libby and teaching books and Sora and Kanopy in a more connected way and pointing out how those connections across content type can really deepen your learning journey. It was motivated by wanting content to connect the same way that our patrons are looking to connect their exploration through the digital world.
Steve Thomas: And the great thing is you have all those great documentaries and everything, but there’s also just like a great library, there’s entertainment stuff in there too, like Everything Everywhere All At Once, like this Oscar winner, in there too. So you get a broad spectrum of what’s available on there.
Jason Tyrell: Yeah, there really is. And if you look across all of our app experiences, some of the most popular titles are the ones that sort of one-to-one cross those media types, right? The “Book to Film” category is enormously popular. If you look at a series like Harry Potter or a series like the Hunger Games, the fact that it’s been adapted so successfully, it brings new patrons and new fans back to these stories over and over and over again, and it sort of doesn’t matter at what point they discover it.
Now, you know, the lifelong argument of “The book’s always better. No, the film is better.” And I love those debates. But really it doesn’t matter from our perspective, it’s all literacy, whether it’s digital media literacy through video, or whether it’s more traditional literacy through reading. At the end of the day, we want people to fall in love with stories like this, and so whatever avenue they take to get there is great with us.
Steve Thomas: In the most successful ones, they all bring their own strengths to it. Like a book is a book, an audio book is an audio book. Like, a movie is not a book. It shouldn’t be. It’s never gonna be a direct adaptation because movies do things differently than books do and have different strengths.
Jason Tyrell: Yeah, they really do. And there’s a different mood and a different motivation for engaging in those media types, right? Like when I want to sit down with a book, I’m in a very different state of mind than when I want to fire up a movie. Audio is really unique and it’s the fastest growing content vertical for us, and not just for us, but I think one of the most, you know, powerful tools that the publishing industry has right now because of how it can engage people in a really accessible way and in a way that feels maybe less daunting, right? Like you can see the hours of an audiobooks runtime, and maybe you don’t feel quite the same pressure as picking up, you know, a thousand page book and feeling that weight in your hands.
So I love the fact that people are reading now on the go all the time through audiobooks and that just sort of points to the fact that people are engaging with reading and with media in all these different ways now, and so we really wanted to centralize what we’re doing at Overdrive so that we can better support those experiences.
Steve Thomas: Yeah. And I know in your position you’re talking a lot to content providers to have them work with you all. What do you see as some of the misconceptions that content providers have about the library market when you’re talking to them, trying to convince them to have their stuff on your service?
Jason Tyrell: Yeah, that’s a great question. It shows itself in a couple of different ways. I think first off, there’s on the film side, sort of an inherent misunderstanding about what this market is. It’s one of the oldest licensing markets in film, but it’s very misunderstood. So, the models are funky, the pricing is very different because it’s not direct to consumer and it’s sort of through an institutional vendor, the distributors can’t really see one-to-one how it impacts their business. What we’ve found is that the value here lies in unlocking new audiences that may or may not be familiar with your brand, that may not be in a position to sign up for a $7 – $20 streaming subscription where your content is available.
But if they engage in a library, they’re much more likely to engage in other ways, and I think that you unlock a unique audience here also because of how patrons sort of move through their journey with libraries. You know, a library relationship is really and truly cradle to grave, right? For most people, their first experience at a library is being brought there by their caregiver or their parent as a little kid and sitting in story hour. And so the library is sort of the place of magic and discovery. Later in life, maybe it’s research for you. You know, you’re there in high school, you’re there in college, working on papers or finding a quiet place to study. Then for some people, maybe there’s a gap after you leave college, where you’re not as tied in and connected to libraries.
For us, we see ourselves as one of the marketing arms of the library that can kind of fill in that gap, right? You’re talking about a younger audience that’s not at the point where they have a whole lot of disposable income to spend. That’s the time that we can fill that gap and start sort of generating opportunities for distributors and their content with that audience. Then that audience comes back to the library when they have young children, and that cycle starts again for them. And then obviously we know the value that libraries have as you enter your senior years and what a resource it is, not just from a content perspective of books and films, but just as a really critical third space in the community.
On the publishing side with books, I think the misconception is that library distribution erodes direct to consumer commercial sales. And we have a ton of data that disproves this, and we have these conversations all the time because in fact, patrons who read eBooks and audiobooks at libraries over-index on book purchases over the course of the year. So as you’re serving that market with books and as you’re serving those patrons, what you’re actually doing is you’re future proofing the market for publishing because you’re building lifelong readers and you’re building passionate readers.
So now is not the time to limit access, and we have the data that really proves that as you discover more books at the library, the more you read at the library, the more likely you are, more likely than a general audience, to purchase books just direct to consumer as well.
Steve Thomas: Yeah, and I, and every time I talk to authors, they all feel that same way too. It’s the discovery layer that’s hard to get. And we just, we introduce people to new books.
Jason Tyrell: Yeah, it is absolutely critical and what always, you know, it doesn’t surprise me, but it continues to be exciting, is how passionate artists and the creative community are about libraries, right?
If you look at who spent a significant amount of time in libraries growing up, you’re sure to find writers, content creators, actors, directors, filmmakers. Every one of them has a story about why the library was a critical part of their upbringing. And so we’re always just enthusiastic to see the support that we get from the creative community when we try and grow these audiences and support libraries through what we do.
Steve Thomas: Well, I think a lot of times when we think about Kanopy and Libby and Overdrive, we’re thinking about the public library setting, but what role do streaming services like Kanopy play in academic settings and what are some ways that academic libraries can maximize their impact?
Jason Tyrell: Yeah, that there’s a really critical role in academic settings. Kanopy originally started as an academic content distributor. We actually didn’t launch the video service in public libraries until 2017, so several years following the streaming launch in academic libraries. Kanopy is foundational with thousands of higher ed institutions across North America. Kanopy’s available in all the Ivy schools and all the major state schools. I’d say any program that has a media studies degree, anywhere that has film studies, but even beyond that, we see Kanopy being utilized in cultural departments, in language studies, in any classroom that’s dealing with conversations around race and class and gender and economics. We’ve seen surprising results supporting films that focus on business and economics.
So I think what’s critical about Kanopy and other platforms that are video centric for higher education is finding ways to repackage information so that it resonates with young people. Again, if you’re talking about, you know, 18 to 23, 24 year olds at university, they grew up video first, right? These are kids that were on YouTube when they were two years old, so the textbook is only gonna get you so far if you’re looking for ideas to resonate. And what’s great about cinema is how it can emotionally connect audiences with big ideas. And that’s really what we aspire to do over there. And I’m thrilled by the fact that professors are finding more and more ways to integrate video because I do think it makes a difference in the, in the school experience for students.
Steve Thomas: What are some ways that you’ve seen academic libraries integrate streaming content into their instructional materials? What are some best practices that they could learn from what people are doing with it?
Jason Tyrell: Oh, that’s a good question. What I’ve found is that universities that are really leaning in to Kanopy are the ones that aren’t being super literal about how to use it. So in other words, you can obviously mine Kanopy as a film studies resource or a media studies resource. I mean, the catalog’s incredible and I say this even though it sounds like tooting our own horn, but I’ve never seen a catalog like this collected. It literally spans the earliest days of black and white short film cinema that was ever created all the way up until theatrical releases from this year.
It’s really profound, sort of the deep journey that you can go on in Kanopy discovering film movements, discovering creators. What’s interesting to me is how it can be used in things like history programs to contextualize really big ideas or really big moments internationally. If you’re teaching the Civil War, if you’re teaching Greek mythology, you can pull clips and pull moments from Kanopy that can underline your point, again in a way that just lands. We know that attention is a challenge in the classroom, right? We know that attention is a challenge in the classroom. Gosh, Steve, I saw a stat the other day that shocked me in a study that was done, students suggested that anything that runs over 90 seconds long, they consider long form.
Steve Thomas: Wow.
Jason Tyrell: Kanopy’s, not like, “Let’s roll a monitor into the classroom and watch a movie now.” What’s great about it though is that we give professors and curriculum development librarians the tools to really like pull clips and mine moments from films that they can then bring together in a playlist to underline whatever the theme of the coursework is, and that’s where I think it can get really innovative. It’s not like “Let’s watch a movie and write a report about it.” It’s really how can we pull from cinema history to underline the subject of the theme. And that can fall well outside of media studies.
Steve Thomas: Librarians, I think love using data, love using analytics. How can libraries use data and analytics with Overdrive products to better understand and engage with their users?
Jason Tyrell: Oh, that’s a really good question. You know, data is certainly one of the hot button issues that comes up all of the time. We’re a certified B corporation, so we take data and privacy and security really seriously.
So given that so much of what we do is anonymized from the user perspective, and that’s really that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than general commercial platforms or apps do. When it comes to data, I think, things like attention can be measured through completion rate, and we’re seeing a lot of utility through Sora in that regard because in the K – 12 space there’s less of a commitment to individual privacy than there is at public libraries, right? These are students that are being given assignments. Given that there’s a lot of tracking that teachers and the students’ families can do that are tied into assessment and really seeing how impactful a reading experience can be on a testing result or some other result.
In higher education, really the focus is on sustainability of the offerings. So a lot of our conversations are around return on investment for resources and really focused in that area.
Steve Thomas: Well, I wanna wrap up just real quick with, AI is everywhere now in the conversation, how does Overdrive see using AI or not using AI? What’s your strategy there?
Jason Tyrell: I think that it’s still fairly early days in regards to the library community’s comfort with AI. Everyone’s obviously and rightfully concerned around its impact on writers and content creators and are very aware of the differences between AI generated content and human generated content, and we obviously all want the arts to continue as a human driven enterprise. So I think because of that, there’s some discomfort just even in and around the subject of AI.
What I am seeing is a lot of exciting projects and interest around how AI can be used for search and discovery and personalization in a way that doesn’t require user profiling in the way that traditional Web 2.0 companies have done in the past.
So for us, these are areas of exploration. We’re trying to structure how we’re going to approach this in the future so that it is a very transparent opted-in process. But again, when you’re talking about hundreds of millions of users and literally billions of engagements with apps on this scale when it comes to a checkout, reading a book, playing a film, and then you put that on top of millions of titles over decades of use, it’s a profound amount of information that could be looked at to really determine how impactful these reading experiences are on people and also to give librarians, I think, maybe some leading indicators of where they can put their investment when they’re thinking about building digital collections.
So I love the fact that we might be able to give librarians sort of deeper insights around what books and what films are working or not working in their community, and also kind of why so that beyond the manual effort of, “Well, let’s look at this collection coming out from this publisher right now,” is there a way to do that at scale that saves librarians time? And so that’s where I think we could be headed, not removing the curatorial work of librarians, which is to me, one of the most critical pieces of what they do, but really amplifying it in such a way that, that they can 5X their output and their impact just through some of these tools.
Steve Thomas: It’s like AI is a tool that you can use and I think what we really want is trusted partners like Overdrive to work with something like that ’cause we don’t want outside people, again, that don’t understand libraries and don’t understand the privacy concerns, but Overdrive has shown that they’re a good partner in that kind of thing. So I think they’d be more willing to accept it from someone like you guys.
Jason Tyrell: No, a hundred percent. And you know, we spend an a ton of time talking to our library partners about what innovations will be the most impactful for them and their workflow? We employ dozens and dozens of librarians at Overdrive, right? So we’ve got the greatest firsthand experiential insights on what it’s like to be a librarian at libraries large and small, public, private, institutional, et cetera.
It’s never been more difficult to make collection development decisions because of the innovations in technology. When you see the scale of the volume of books that are being published in a single year, I think last year the number was upwards of 6 million books published when you go from major publishers all the way down to independent authors. How do you work through that? How do you sort of figure out how that whittles down to a collection that’s impactful and empowering for your community and the individual needs of your community? We need tools, right? We need to leverage the tools that are creating scale and put them in the right hands and so anything that we do as we innovate going forward is gonna be in partnership with the libraries.
Steve Thomas: Well, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and letting us all know about the work that Kanopy in particular, but Overdrive in general are doing and thank you for all the work that you do.
Jason Tyrell: Thanks, Steve. I really appreciate it. It’s been great. So happy to be here with you today.
Circulating Ideas 