Sunday, December 6, 2015

E-books in the School Library

Jenkins, Linda

Brisko, S. (2010). E-books in the school library. In S. Polanka (Ed.). No shelf required: E-books in libraries (pp. 37 – 54). Chicago, IL, USA: American Library Association Editions. 

This article is chapter 3 in the book No Shelf Required: E-books in Libraries.  The article states that school libraries need to provide information to students in a variety of formats.  Popular formats for books are audio e-books, interactive e-books and text only e-books. These formats for books are currently more prevalent in public libraries than in schools, perhaps due to the limited budgets of school libraries.  Brisko noted there are many sites where e-books can be accessed for free and she lists about a dozen and a half websites in the article. Once a school obtains e-books, Brisko said it is up to the librarian to inform and market the e-books to the students and teachers of the school so they know the e-books are available for use.  Adding MARC records to the schools OPAC system can help remind patrons the e-books exist.  Brisko also lists numerous reasons why a school should have e-books which can be used when justifying the cost of e-books.  In addition, there is a list of possible funding sources in the article. 


The article is over five years old but provides information that is still relevant in today’s school library.  The list of free e-book sites is very useful information for libraries looking for free resources, especially since the list is divided into two lists: one for elementary schools and the other for middle and high schools.

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