On Libraries and New Media, powered by Library Journal and School Library Journal
As the use of digital content grows in schools, school librarians are making decisions on how to best acquire this material. In some cases, they’re choosing to spend money on ereaders and lean toward free content. Others are leveraging the personal devices of students and teachers and putting their funds into subscription-based models. But the goal is the same—to grant students and educators access to digital content.
The principal of New Milford High School in Bergen County, Sheninger employs a full range of social media, from Twitter to Facebook, to foster “six pillars” of leadership, from professional development to communication, broadcasting in real time everything from sports scores to campus news across the entire school community.
The way forward remains unclear for public libraries regarding new-release fiction in ebook form. School libraries, on the other hand, are lucky to have an amazing group of independent publishers working to resolve the issues. In the case of nonfiction, many of our publishers are offering unlimited, simultaneous access to ebooks. They recognize that ebook usage is governed by math and statistical probability.
As more books go digital, librarians will occupy more of the training and coaching role. Today’s librarian will need to excel at training users on how to use databases, eReaders, tablets and mobile.
The management of digital resources requires a selection and evaluation process by a professional who’s involved with integrating technology into teaching and learning. We see examples of this change underway in lots of libraries today.
Just as their adult counterparts, smartphone-powered teens are evolving before our very eyes into savvy shoppers, location-aware consumers, and mobile addicts.
“The library is a societal tent pole,” says Michael Connelly, best-selling author of The Fifth Witness. “There are a lot of ideas under it. Knock out the pole and the tent comes down.”
Hundreds of Wisconsin school and public libraries narrowly avoided paying more for Internet service when state lawmakers reached a budget agreement last week to save WiscNet, a nonprofit cooperative that provides low-cost broadband service.
Ebook versions of the best-selling Harry Potter series will be available starting in October on a new website called “Pottermore.”
