School Digital Librarians UK

✨Last chance- Audiobook competition entries closing soon!! ✨

Enter ePlatforms fantastic audiobook competition before it closes on the 30th June!! Simply like and share ePlatforms competition post for your chance to win a curated school audiobook library (worth £745). 😀🥳

The team at ePlatform would like to thank all our wonderful Librarians for the fantastic eBook and Audiobook suggestions made over the past couple of months. ePlatform has added 84 titles based on your suggestions... a HUGE thanks! 😃🙏

Hi Everyone, Happy Audiobook Appreciation Month! The team at ePlatform loves audiobooks, and to celebrate, are running a great competition on Facebook and Twitter. ePlatform are giving away a curated school audiobook library with 800+ titles for a year (worth £745). To enter the competition simply like and share this post or head to ePlatform's Twitter on https://twitter.com/eplatformuk

The lucky winner will be drawn on the 30/06/2021 (U.K. only)

Visit https://tinyurl.com/9j3f7sby to see the latest additions to our fantastic Audiobook Collection.

Hi everyone, ePlatform is giving away a great prize via Twitter. The winner chooses between a customised ePlatform 1,250 title EBOOK library for one year (Value £495 with access to 1,250+ titles) OR a £250 voucher for print books. Here's the tweet and good luck! https://twitter.com/eplatformuk/status/1293842730892685312?s=20

Wheelers ePlatform UK on Twitter “**For SCHOOL LIBRARIANS only** Win either a customised ePlatform 1,250 title EBOOK library for one year (Value £495 with access to 1,250+ titles) OR a £250 voucher for print books. Follow+RT to enter! We'll pick a winner on 27/8 (U.K. only)”

Thoughts as to which of these books are most suitable for school libraries?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/28/booker-prize-2020-longlist-announced-hilary-mantel?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks

Hilary Mantel up for third Booker prize as 2020 longlist announced Author of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy vies with 12 other contenders in a field marked by a high number of debuts

Everyone's having to adapt, Ross is a great communicator and virtual visits are a great idea.

***VIRTUAL VISITS NOW OPEN***

I'm now taking bookings for school visits and virtual sessions in the autumn term - please reply if you'd like me to send you one of my brochures with details about my books, workshops and rates!

There are more details about my virtual visits and school sessions online too - check out my webpage for more details about the kind of things I offer.

http://rossmontgomery.co.uk/school-visits/

ePlatform are offering free Zoom training sessions all about digital libraries. You can be an existing ePlatform customer looking for deeper knowledge, or simply considering ebooks and audiobooks for your school and want a bit more information before you proceed. Either way please reply if you want one-on-one or prefer a small group session (for example with a work colleague).

ePlatform are offering free Zoom training sessions all about digital libraries - please reply if you want one-on-one or prefer a small group session.

More data from ePlatform's shared collection https://ukh.eplatform.co/ The top 7 ebooks by loans across year 7 boys:

1. Wonder
2. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
3. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
4. Holes
5. The Hobbit
6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
7. Alex Rider Book 1: Stormbreaker

Swap tips, ask for advice and help others at the School Digital Librarians (UK) FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1545428488956558/

Connect with other librarians and teachers. Swap tips, ask for advice, and help others. Hope to see you there.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1545428488956558/

Hi everyone! For even more tips on implementing a successful digital library, join our free Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1545428488956558/

Connect with other librarians and teachers. Swap tips, ask for advice and help others. Hope to see you there.

Covid-19 has dramatically increased ebook loans across all school levels. When school libraries fully re-open, these growth rates will diminish, but for now, ebooks and audiobooks remain popular.

Failure to Launch - the LMS or Bust

Some schools are incredibly successful with digital libraries and others struggle. This post is likely to be controversial because it goes against the grain for some librarians and takes some emphasis away from the Library Management System (LMS), and suggests promoting the digital library platform in its own right.

You've probably got an amazing library management system such as Accessit or Softlink. These are powerful applications and are fabulous for the discovery of all formats, including ebooks and audiobooks.

Naturally, you really want the students to make this the first point of call for finding a good read, and this can make you reluctant to point students directly to the school's digital library platform, and that will certainly reduce adoption. Why? Because it introduces at least a couple of extra steps in the process for the student, and that turns them off. Like all of us, they want 'easy'.

The student cannot fully interact with the book from within the library management system, so the student still needs to go to the digital library platform to fully interact with the title.

Digital library platforms such as Overdrive, ePlatform, EPIC have spent small fortunes making their platforms perfectly suited to ebooks (and audiobooks) display and consumption. The titles are attractively displayed, can be borrowed, reserved, favourited, and opened for reading within a few seconds. There are dozens of other features such as annotating the book, saving it for later, and so on.

So having the ebooks and audiobooks in the catalogue is a 'must-do', and discovery will often occur there. However, if you promote the digital library platform to students directly, some of them will love it and read like mad.

A few ideas that seem to work:
- Ask students to borrow their first ebook during a guided library session - they'll be fine from there
- Ensure prominent links and logos to you digital library platform from the school's library/digital resources home pages
- Ask the students to bookmark the digital library on their laptops/devices
- Encourage the students to download the relevant app (Overdrive ePlatform, BorrowBox)

A bit of data* from ePlatform - the top 5 ebooks by loans across hundreds of secondary schools in the UK for June so far (no surprises really):

1. The Fault in Our Stars
2. Wonder
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
5. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

.. year level break downs to come.
* Shared collections only

Keep your students reading over the summer break which this offer from ePlatform, a great solution for schools looking for ebooks and audiobooks.

The New York Times Bestsellers The NYT best selling fiction and nonfiction books. Updated weekly. May 30.

13 books about race you should read right now - Rakuten OverDrive The Professional Book Nerds share13 race-related books they think everyone should read.

Making Reading Cool Again By Heather Saunders, Director of Ingalls Library

Silly Squad Summer Reading Challenge 2020 The Summer Reading Challenge is back from Friday 5 June 2020, helping children in Hillingdon to enjoy a summer of brilliant books. Pick Your Challenge This year’s Silly Squad Summer Reading Challen…

https://twitter.com/noveliciouss/status/1269522990355668992?s=09&fbclid=IwAR00sa64EuXOIa-siButxa3MG_1IBGUG0qZO8MOLHGJ2nk_zTUhT-bTc-RQ

Novelicious on Twitter “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them Mark Twain ”

Hi everyone! For even more tips on implementing a successful digital library, join our free Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1545428488956558/

You can connect with our librarians and teachers and swap tips, ask for advice and help others? Hope to see you there.