Reading is Epic!

One of my favorite apps at the moment is Epic! This free app allows teachers to set up accounts for their classes to access what has been described as a Netflix for children's books. The app is truly amazing and my children love it. There are books, audiobooks, and videos from popular fiction and non-fiction authors and publishers. When a reading app is free, I tend to balk since the quality can be questionable. Not so in this case. It is a breeze to set up the accounts and make reading lists for individuals or whole classes. Teachers can monitor what students read and view and how long it takes them to do so. 

Of course, there is always a catch. The app is only available during school hours. If you try to log in too early in the morning, in the evening, or on weekends you are out of luck. If you don't want to pay for the family subscription, which quite honestly is not very expensive, there are other alternatives for accessing similar high-quality content. Storyline Online has members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) narrate animated versions of popular children's books. If your public or school library subscribes to BookFlix, TrueFlix, or TumbleBooks you can access these digital resources for free. Access to ebooks and audiobooks may also be available through your local public or school library through OverDrive. There are many viable options to supplement the content in the Epic app.

Little Free Libraries

My husband and I can't seem to pass one of those Little Free Libraries without taking a peek inside. It is always entertaining to see what titles are in there on that particular day. Unfortunately, not all of them are being well received.

Destiny Quest App

The Destiny Quest app is awesome and I use it all the time when I am helping classes look for independent reading books. There is nothing like having a mobile card catalog while roaming the stacks and some of the students have begun downloading it, too. This is why I can't believe I forgot about it last week.

Our Internet connection was a little uncooperative over the last two weeks and would go up and down throughout the day. The freshman were starting Pro/Con research papers and this made it difficult to use our LibGuide and databases for research, as well as locating books in the card catalog. For some strange reason my first instinct was to grab the Sears subject headings book to help locate books on the various topics since the Dewey numbers are in there. This worked well enough and books were located for everyone, but it hit me later - the catalog app still worked! It wasn't our server that crashed, it was the Internet connection. I had been running my phone off of the 3G and not the wireless every time the network went down. I could have used that instead and had the students download it to their phones. I doubt I'll forget this next time!

QR Code Update

On Friday I had some freshman classes in the library for independent book selection. The second of the two classes had a few minutes left at the end of the period and one of the students decided to download a QR reader onto her phone and check out the barcode on the book she had checked out. Two of her friends gathered around to see the book trailer. This was the first time I had witnessed a student doing this with the books I had put on display with the codes. They loved it and started scanning codes on other books before the bell rang. I figured this PR attempt would take some time to catch on and was glad to see it being used.

The Everybody Collection

My library serves a wide range of patrons, as all do. My high school is a bit unique in the number of special education students we have. The number is rather high and includes quite a range of abilities.

When I started working at my former district many special education services were contracted out to the Intermediate Unit (IU). Although these students were in our building (such as life skills and emotional support), they were in classrooms and didn't generally mix with the rest of the students. The district later decided to move those services in-house, the library had a new sub-group of patrons to meet the needs of . The new life skills teacher wanted to bring the students to the library, but we didn't have books on an elementary level. Initially, we borrowed books from the elementary schools, partly because we weren't sure if the new classes were a permanent change. They would send over a crate of books, but that quickly became a pain for both them and us. Finally, we established a small collection of books on an early elementary school level.

When I arrived at my new position I started a similar collection. I used some budget money and received a grant from the Home and School Association (HSA) to get it started. I focused on non-fiction that life skills teachers could use in their lessons and award winners. I tried to avoid anything too babyish, while maintaining the appropriate reading level. This year I am adding more books that the pre-school lab needs. The high school students do lessons on specific topics (concepts, seasons, nature) and need books that are more academic than have been donated to the classroom library. I was able to add some concept books recently through a DonorsChoose.org grant.

It is difficult to meet so many patron needs in the library. How do you reach out to your special education students?

The Kindle

Last year I got a Kindle and I love it. I just got a basic one since I figured I would be getting an iPad within the year or two. I never thought I would like reading books on a device, but after reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand on my iPhone for a book club, I realized it wasn't so bad. If the story is engaging, it doesn't matter what format the book is in. Oh, and moving last year helped me decide to investigate ebooks, as well. Let's not get into how many boxes there were of just cookbooks, but children's books are the only thing I buy in paper format anymore if I can help it.

What do I like about reading on a Kindle?

• Battery life - absolutely insane
• Easy to hold when lying down
• Adjustable print size - my vision is very good, but it is nice to be able to adjust the print size and screen contrast
• Storage - frees up so much space in the house
• Cheap ebooks - Kindle Daily Deals get me trouble quickly - and books needed for my dissertation were cheaper in e-format
• Free ebooks - so easy to download from the public library
• Kindle apps - I can use any of my devices to pick up reading right where I left off

What device do you use for e-reading and where do you get your books from?

eBooks Revisited

I have written before about the issue of ebooks, but I will again today because of one statement I keep hearing over and over. It continues to both crack me up and make me sad when people say, as if consoling me, that it must be difficult for me that ebooks are the new trend. Um, no, not really. While I am continuously surprised that I am considered a “techie”, ebooks are not breaking my heart at all. My concern, as I usually reply, is that the students are getting up-to-date, accurate information, not the format that it is in. With budget cuts a constant threat and limited funding available for consistency in annual database subscriptions, I kind of like the idea of building our own database through ebook subscriptions. I am now focusing on the unlimited, simultaneous access ebooks rather than checking out individual ebooks to students.

This statement also leads me to wonder if the misconception that ebooks are causing librarians’ hearts to shatter the world over is another product of the general public’s confusion about what libraries are. Do they think librarians cursed the book as it replaced the scroll? As I say in my header, libraries are not about books, but free access to information. They provide educational and entertainment opportunities to whomever wishes to take part. I have written before that I have become an ebook/ereader convert. While I value the editorial process, I don’t feel any loyalty to the format of the book. Whatever will keep my students on the right track and provide accurate, timely information gets my vote. Libraries are evolving.

However, there is one thing that does cause me to pause and reconsider my stance. I wish I could give credit to the article I read recently that planted this seed, but I don’t remember which one it was. Growing up there were always books in my house and we made trips to the library. Will future children be as enticed to read if there aren’t books lying around the house like they were for us?