Week 9, Thing 22

Sigh. I had this whole post written and then the software from the British Library wacked my computer.

I've been looking at ebooks and audiobooks for about 6 months now, trying to develop some kind of strategy for introducing them at school (middle school). I have a few books on CD but they're just so "old school"!

I've found issues with both formats although the issues are a bit different.

Audiobooks - I'd like to use mp3's for these. The issue is the players, both buying them and then making sure they don't get others things put on them or have the book erased. I know Playaways might be a good solution for this but they're so gosh darn expense and of course, in this critical fiscal year I have no funds. The nice thing about putting them on CD is that you don't have the issue with circulation that you might with just an mp3 file since you can own 1 copy and have it on a specific device. I've looked at (and used) audiobooks from netlibrary and plan to talk with them about what a public school library solution costs. This seems like a great area for outsourcing to a vendor like them but I suspect it's pretty costly.

Ebooks are my other area of interest - particularly fiction ebooks since I do have access to several electronic databases which gives me access to a lot of non-fiction sources. The big issue here is the device to read them on. I can make them available on the laptops at school but that limits students to reading at school only which isn't the best solution. Some have pc's at home but certainly not most. Ebook readers are expensive which makes it a difficult solution for now. There's also the big issue with complying with copyright restrictions. I read recently that Follett has fiction ebooks available the can be managed through Destiny. This sounds like a good potential solution for the circulation issues (although it sounds like there are some glitches with this) but it doesn't solve the device issue.

I've looked at a lot of the free ebook sites and although there's a lot available, they're almost all old due to copyright issues. Although there are great classics out there, these aren't the kind of books that kids are looking for and many are just too difficult for our students to read. There are some great resources like the original Alice text that they would find "curious"! and access to the Mozart mp3 files is great, I still don't think this is what will grab students who love Stephanie Meyer. I do like the fact that it will read the text to the students, however. This certainly makes it more accessible.



Fortunately, the head tech person for the district is very much behind the idea of electronic resources so I'll have an advocate for the project.