iPads in Libraries–TXLA13

Thanks to all who joined for a discussion of iPads and libraries at the Texas Library Association conference in Fort Worth this weekend.   iPads in Libraries TXLA 2013 More PowerPoint presentations from C Foote A list of apps I mentioned are here, along with a PDF file for easy downloading to your iPad.    And the notes from the Today’s Meet chat room during the session are here. Another resource is the EanesWifi blog that we kept as we went through the pilot process; […]

Adding to the e-book offerings: Follett Shelf

Our campus began using Overdrive this winter as a solution for delivery of check-outable items to our library.  In January, Follett rolled out an app for their Follett Shelf product that they’ve had for a couple of years, with promises that it would now integrate with Destiny’s online catalog porduct.  Since Overdrive sometimes carries only audio versions of particular e-books and not as many K-12 titles, I was interested in exploring what Shelf has to offer.  We already had some e-books from Follett but we […]

E-book market update

It seems like I’ve been on an e-book tear lately but with the market changing so rapidly, I find it helpful to share. Today I met with a representative from Baker and Taylor who shared their new e-book product.  Their marketing I find a bit confusing because of so many different product names, but their digital media library is called Axis360.   When you begin using Axis360, your site is fairly standard across their platform, but they can customize your logo and a couple of other […]

Adding to the e-book mayhem

Some new details on the e-book front the last few days… First, Penguin announced the end of their contract with Overdrive, not only leaving librarians unsure as to what’s going to happen with existing Overdrive books from Penguin, but also casting doubt on Overdrive’s ability to keep large publishers as partners.   Having just gone with Overdrive this year, it makes me hesitant.  There’s no answer yet about whether libraries will be able to retain their existing titles from Penguin either.   This decision on Penguin’s part, […]

E-book advocacy

Or  news  from the quagmire that is the e-book market…. In Kansas State librarian Jo Budler’s session at ALA Midwinter,  “Do I Own These E-books or Not,”  Budler summarized the issues that Kansas State had faced with Overdrive’s e-book contract, which in its earlier iteration, allowed libraries to “keep” their content after discontinuing Overdrive.   The newer version of the contract uses different languaging so for many libraries, the experience she had is perhaps a moot point.  But what I learned from the session was to […]

Growing an e-book library

Because our school is in the midst of a 1:1 iPad implementation, it became critical to figure out how to deliver “library” books to students, and an e-library seemed an important way to reduce costs for students who might otherwise end up individually purchasing every reading title they need. While our library has been experimenting with a variety of e-book offerings the last few years, finding a model that worked easily and well with the iPads was now important.  So among other things, we have […]

iPad apps for libraries and readers

“I cannot live without books”–Thomas Jefferson. Obviously, there are a plethora of book and reading apps for the iPad. How to choose and how can they fit into library use?   Whether you are circulating your iPads to students, or using them as library “reading stations,” a number of apps provide book access for students. And then there is the consideration when using various apps about the readability–do the ones with animations really distract students from reading the text, even though they have a “coolness” factor? […]

When e-books mimic video games

What could make e-books go over the top in terms of consumer buy-in?  Already this year Kindle books outsold print books on Christmas Day (see correction note at end of my post about this)  on Amazon–but what would make e-books even more ubiquitous? I’m imagining a killer app similar to “Bump” for the iPhone or Pokemon for the Nintendo DS where you could bump your Kindle or iPhone and  instead of exchanging addresses or a Pokemon character, you could exchange book passages or entire books. […]

Which way do we go? The “e-book” dilemma

It’s Beta vs. VHS vs. Laserdisc all over again.  8-Track tape versus cassette.  We’ve all been there, standing on the precipice debating formats. The precipice which is foremost right now in my mind is what to do about e-books.  We are faced with Kindles, Nooks, Sony Ebook readers, iTouches, Follett e-books online, Netlibrary, Gale Virtual Reference Shelf, and all the various librarian-y reference book publishers e-book products.    In a high school, it’s pretty hard to get student attention long enough to direct users to all these different e-book […]