Lear, B. A., & Pritt, A. L. (2021). “We Need Diverse E-Books:” Availability of Award-Winning Children’s and Young Adult Titles in Today’s E-Book Platforms. Collection Management, 46(3–4), 223–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2021.1908194 24 pages
McKenna, Charmagne
This article by Lear and Pritt discusses a research project by the two authors to compare the availability of award winning and professionally recognized PreK-12 titles on 7 different platforms. These included: EBSCO, Follett, Hoopla, Mackin, Overdrive, ProQuest, and Tumblebooks. The authors looked specifically at topics including themes about gender, race/ethnicity, disability diversity and LGBTQ+. COVID was the impetus for Lear and Pritt to begin this project as the importance of curating digital children’s and young adult (YA) material became evident. These authors included 2000 juvenile book titles with awards/honors or on a best books list (2015-19) recognized by professional organizations for teachers or librarians. These included ALA, ILA, NCSS, NCTE, and NSTA. The conclusions found there was disparity by grade level and publisher, but in terms of topics it was generally similar to what was available on all other titles in the database. The results by platform were that EBSCO and ProQuest had 37% and 33% of these topics available. It was speculated though that these platforms tend to serve older students and might have better availability of titles in an older age range. School based platforms Follett and Mackin were similar in providing access to about 75% of the titles. Tumblebooks only provided access to about 5% of the titles. Overdrive and Hoopla usually serve public libraries but had quite a discrepancy. Overdrive had the best access with 80% and Hoopla provided access to 24% of the titles.
This information would be very useful for a teacher or librarian, particularly considering the expense to subscribe to book platforms and the need for inclusive and diverse material for children and young adults.
No comments:
Post a Comment