Re: Electronic books

We have an extensive audio-book collection and are also replacing the more critical ones with CD versions. I bought a number of Playaways, easily available thru Follett (some are on Amazon), but they do not fly off the shelves for us. Most of our audio-book traffic is from families going on vacations in a car. THose with older cars are still using the cassettes and those with newer cars are taking the CDs. THe Playaways can be plugged into your car radio if youhave that set-up with the little I-pod-like connection in front, but most do not have them yet. I will continue to collect the CD-version for right now, and they are a few dollars cheaper than the Playaways. Personally, I was surprised and disappointed that our Playaways have not done better. Perhaps it is because we are a middle-upper school library.
Judith Lewis from Moses Brown School in Providence, RI

-----Original Message-----
From: Meyerson, Marilyn <Mmeyerson@KEYSCHOOL.ORG>
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Sent: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:12 am
Subject: Re: Electronic books

We also began an audio collection in our LS library this year using
Playaways. Though they are expensive, about $40 each, they are flying
off our shelves. The kids and parents love them. We usually try to have
kids check the book out also, so that they can listen and read
along--hitting two modalities at once.

Thanks,
Marilyn Meyerson
Head, Library and Technology
The Key School
<mmeyerson@keyschool.org>

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Michele Gutierrez
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 10:04 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Electronic books

This does not address all of your questions, but our librarian started
building our audio collection this year, and she is going with a device
called a PlayAway. She was faced with all of the same questions about
what
is the best for the future, but did not have an existing collection to
worry about. These Playaways are self contained audio books and players.
There is no worrying about what form is best or any worry about students
who do not have access to an iPod.

Thanks,

Michele Gutierrez
Lower School Technology Coordinator
Lower School Diversity Coordinator
Durham Academy Lower School
3501 Ridge Road
Durham, NC 27705

http://academics.da.org/lowerschool/

A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
writes:
>Our school library is a bit different than most. Due to our population
>(all LD students) we offer our students a "reading library". We have
many
>fiction books, as all students are required to do nightly reading, and
>about 1200 books on tape. Over the course of the last couple of years
we
>are trying to move away from books on audio tape to books on CD, since
>nobody has a cassette player anymore! We have been converting the
>cassette tapes to CDs. Of course now we are starting to think about
how
>we can offer these books to our students that have iPods, which if it's
>anything like your school, it's most of the kids! I don't know if we
>should be converting these CDs to digital audio and putting them on
some
>kind of server for them to download, or if we should then podcast them
>some way. The idea is for kids to be able to listen and read along at
>home. I'm sure CD players will go the way of cassette players soon and
we
>want to be prepared. I would welcome any thoughts, suggestions or
>experiences with this issue. Thanks.
>
>:) Laurie
>
>Laurie Yalem
>Technology Coordinator
>Churchill Center & School for Learning Disabilities
>1021 Municipal Center Dr.
>Town & Country, MO 63131
>314-997-4343
>lyalem@churchillstl.org
>www.churchillstl.org
>
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