eBooks just got more game

At long last Google announced the long anticipated launch of Google eBooks. More options for more readers! The non-proprietary nature of the platform should be making Amazon nervous. It certainly changes the terrain for school libraries. As we all wait and wonder which way to jump Google eBook gives options.

Official Google Blog: Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice of booksellers and devices







The ubiquity of eBooks is indisputable.  Platforms and vendors have already changed gears and incorporated Google eBooks into their interfaces. As an example take a look at GoodReads which has already incorporated Google eBooks with comparison pricing from Barnes and Noble (Nook) and Amazon (Kindle) options.

We will be updating our wiki with news and information about Google eBooks and pushing it out via our CCHS LC Facebook Fan page and district email. More options for more readers using diverse devices sounds good to me!

Book bigot

On Friday, during the last block of the day, I was walking around, straightening chairs, with my iPad tucked under my arm. A group of students, seated in a circle in our comfy chairs, asked about the iPad and if they could play with it a bit. I said sure, handed it over, and after about 10 minutes cycled back to see what they thought.

We talked about gaming, some of the apps, and then about what it was like to "really" read digitally. Like a novel. Like, real reading, not school reading. (Hmm. That was an interesting comment.) I took the opportunity to introduce my favorite topic at the moment, ePub. I showed them the conference notes that I had transformed into an ebook and uploaded to iBook. We looked at the text to speech and other accessibility features, notes and bookmarking, and talked about how teachers could create their own digital textbooks using material they had already created. It was a great discussion.

And then one of the boys asked "But Mrs. Cicchetti, won't you miss books?" He held up a worn paperback he had been reading, flipped the pages against his cheek, and said "I'd miss doing this. I'd miss holding it in my hands like this."

It was an interesting moment. He sounded like many people my age who wax on about their attachment to the physical book. I wondered, at that moment, if my bias toward digital text wasn't, perhaps, a form of bigotry against the traditional book. Am I a book bigot? 

Or have I taken on the role of digital crusader because it takes that degree of energy and focus to shift the entrenched cult of THE BOOK? 

This article from The Guardian made me think about the conversation today.
Is the ebook the new hardback? | Books | guardian.co.uk

"As e-readers move towards the mainstream, publishers' increasing interest in web-first publishing could leave luddites waiting up to six months longer than the cool kids to read their favourite author's latest novel."

Web-first publishing, the well documented rise in eBook and ereader sales and the ready access to free and accessible (text-to-speech, etc.) books all mean the emotional connection to THE BOOK might be holding this student back. 

I am so excited about our Kindle pilot. I am so energized about ePub and the implications for learning and providing students with the skills to access quality content that is becoming more ubiquitous by the day.

This book bigot is, indeed, on a crusade. I won't be ripping books out of the hands of children, but I look forward to the day when I can put an e-reader in their other hand and guarantee their understanding and skills in this evolving literacy landscape.

Day 6

NaNoWriMo

Stale bread

After a month long hiatus from blogging I was feeling really out of it. I was tagging things in my RSS feed to potentially blog about later. Things that made my think, new information, practices I might want to try - but I wasn't making time for the next step of synthesizing my thoughts in a blog post.


It wasn't a good feeling.

And October was such a great month for new information! eBooks Libraries at the Tipping Point, the virtual summit hosted by SLJ and Library Journal on September 29, 2010, was a flood of challenging and inspiring blogs, tweets and Facebook posts. I was tagging things but not deeply focusing on them and working to make connections. Now, when I revist links I feel as if some of the spark has dissipated. Not from the conference and the great information, but from me and my process. By waiting so long my initial excitement turned a little stale. It is as if that by not participating, I dropped out of the conversation.

October also saw the Massachusetts School Library Association and MassCue educational technology conferences in Massachusetts. Even more good stuff!

So I am walking away from things I tagged to think about later. Tired of stale bread. Ready for a fresh loaf.

Day 4 NaNoWriMo
(Not writing a novel. Using this as a prompt to blog daily for a month.)

Photo credit:

Flickr Creative Commons
Stale Bread
By Faith Durand

The Future of the Book

I can tell you the precise moment when I fell in love with reading, and with books. When my Mom read Are you my mother? by P.D. Eastman to me for the first time, she read the line "You are not my mother! You are a SNORT!", but she said "snort" more like "shhhhnort!" I almost fell off my single Sears bed with the sensible coverlet and hospital corners, in peals of giggles.

Since I learned to read my nose has been firmly stuck in a book. Yet I am not worried about the future of "the book." Paper has served us well for quite a long time, and isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

The "future" of the book is what excites me. The possibilities of engaging with the written word, the transformed thought, the flight of imagination, in new ways.

As I talk with our students it is clear that, while they are digital natives, many are still firmly in the camp of the traditional book. Almost uniformly they state they would prefer digital alternatives to text books, but for personal reading, many still want the book in hand. One student talked about the privacy of disappearing into a narrative on the written page, which is a sentiment I have heard from colleagues. And yet this student had never experienced an e-reader, so his opinion is uninformed.

This is one of the reasons we will be grant writing for a variety of digital readers in the next month. I sure hope we are awarded because I look forward to sharing our process. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I found this in my neglected RSS feed. Worth the 4+ minutes. Especially the section when they refer to authority and information. But that is a different kettle of fish entirely!



The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

The Guy

Don't kid yourself. School libraries are businesses. We have budgets, we are accountable to our school administrators, we have curriculum standards and benchmarks, and most important of all, we have customers. Without the kids we have no business. If we do anything less than make ourselves indispensable, we are on the cut list and our programs are lost. It is really the students who lose.

So what does a global business marketing guru have to do with school libraries?

Everything.

• Delivering relevant product (our 21st century curriculum)
• Shipping every day (student and faculty service with a SMILE!)
• Innovation (staying cutting edge)
• Dominating our niche (being the go-to person for information technologies)
• Visionary (inspiring and leading change)
• Product (preparing our students for productive lives in the information economy)

Godin has just released his latest book as a vook. For $4.99 you not only get to hear from an exceptionally smart man, but also experience the quickly approaching environment of the hybrid book. This is an example of what our collections will soon be accommodating.

How do we catalog this? Curate this? Manage this? I sure as heck don't know, but I'll be scrambling to find out in order to be ready.

So, go on, take a look at the Vook...

Unleashing the SUPER Ideavirus

"In a world where an Internet video of a piano playing cat can get more public attention that a multi-million dollar television advertising spot, how do marketers, business or anyone who has an idea they want to spread get the right attention? Seth Godin might not have a quick fix or a miracle solution, but his Unleashing the SUPER Ideavirus Vook will bring you completely up to speed on the tactics you need to survive and thrive in today's fast paced information economy."

For a little more Seth, check out his recent TED Talk.

(Source:  Seth Godin: This is broken | Video on TED.com)

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

The future of the book 1959

"A look into the future that never was." Paleo-Future is one of the funkiest little blogs I have come across in awhile.  A recent post called The Electronic Home Library 1959 struck a chord.

Today we are in much the same position as they were in the Chicago funny pages in 1959. The future is closer than we think. And we are trying to figure out which way to jump. Books are the perfect example. Kindle? Nook? Sony Reader? iPad? NetBook? Tablet?  Get a load of the Kno. It will blow your socks off.


Kno Movie from Kno, Inc. on Vimeo.

As librarians we are leaders in information technology. If you haven't started yet, make this the year you write grants and do whatever it takes to start getting these technologies into your schools, into the hands of students and teachers.

Not because we know they are the "right" technologies, but because we need to play, explore and experience the evolutions in order to understand the impact on teaching and learning. Yeah, I know. Technology is too transitory to make a commitment. Don't make a BIG budget commitment, but instead make small scale investments in exploration. This is one of my goals this year. I commit to explore, and  enlist others to join me on the expedition. Together we can lead the way.

Have a great school year, everyone.

Reading for FREE!

"In the virtual future, you must organize to survive." OK. I'm in. As a well known fan of dystopian fiction the opening line has me hooked - line and sinker. However, I won't pay for this book, because the author is giving it away. It has already been downloaded to my desktop.

I will certainly buy a copy for the library collection, and I'll purchase an MP3version because I really want students to have as much access as possible to this book. But for how much longer? Reading is alive and well, but the traditional venues are giving way to new ideas for reimbursing authors for their work.

Cory Doctorow is a writer/blogger who spends his time at the forefront of the digital world. By sharing his work freely it fuels his speaking engagements, paid writing assignments, and who knows what else. He also releases his work under a Creative Commons license and allows readers and fans to re-mix his work, as long as they follow reasonable guidelines.

Cory Doctorow: For the win "Below you'll find links to downloadable editions of the text of For the Win. These downloads are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license, which lets you share it, remix it, and share your remixes, provided that you do so on a noncommercial basis. Some people don't understand why I do this -- so check out this post if you want my topline explanation for why I do this crazy thing. "

Example of a fan submitted Wordle:

This is new ground. Cory Doctorow is a pioneer who, by his actions, is changing the game for everyone. He is also a terrific writer. His first book, Little Brother, is also available as a free download, although you can check it out from our library, too!

Add  the quickly expanding array of sites dedicated to digital reading and free access (text and audio) and the scope of the transition becomes very apparent. Check out the CCHS Learning Commons wiki devoted to reading and look at the formats and portals we are making available to our students. We have a lot more work to do, but have made a good start. Taking a cue from Cory Doctorow, our wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You are welcome to harvest our wiki in exchange for attribution.

Google for Teachers

Have I mentioned how much I love my RSS feed lately? Via Joyce Valenza's blog, here is Richard Byrne's 33 page donloadable/embeddable ebook Google for Teachers. Focusing on the less visible but just as powerful options,  it has "21 ideas and how to instructions for creating Google Maps placemarks, directions creating and publishing a quiz with Google Docs forms, directions for embedding books into your blog, and visual aids for accessing other Google tools."

The generosity of educational bloggers never ceases to amaze me. Pass it along. (Click full screen for a great, readable version.)

Google for Teachers -

Format bigotry or What exactly is a book?

The New York Times article Do School Libraries Need Books? hits a nerve. Kudos to the articulate and informed library professionals and advocates who were interviewed for the article, even if I disagree with most of their conclusions.

Over the course of the article there are so many references to the tangible experience of paper.  Books and paper have strong sensory, emotional, nostalgic associations. Over and over again I have had people explain with passion how they love the feel and smell of books and the weight of holding it in your hands. Nobody comments on how heavy a book is, how you can't take that many in your suitcase for vacation because of the weight, or holding it in bed at night. Nobody mentions that with paper you have no chance for digital accommodations like text-to-speech which allow greater access to all learners.

These same strong connections carry over to the idea of the library. We all know and understand what a library is, what it does for us, and how to use it. We know it is a quiet place dedicated to learning and inquiry. We understand the librarian is there to help us navigate the process of acquiring knowledge and building meaning.

We all want students to love reading, to become effective users of information and life-long learners. These goals are no longer enough, and our emotional connections with the familiar are holding us back. If we want libraries to survive and remain relevant we need to play closer attention to schools like Cushing Academy, because they are blazing the trail for all of us.

"Our library is now the most-used space on campus, with collaborative learning areas, classrooms with smart boards, study sections, screens for data feeds from research sites, a cyber cafe, and increased reference and circulation stations for our librarians. It has become a hub where students and faculty gather, learn and explore together." 
This is a perfect illustration of a learning commons, and it isn't a quiet space dedicated to books. It is a dynamic, energized space students recognize as valuable and pertinent to their needs and education.  Hmmm....

"...they need more help from librarians to navigate these resources, so we have also increased our library staff by 25 percent."
Many other programs are facing staff cuts, yet Cushing needs to add staff to support increased demand for  student learning. Hmmm...

"Cushing Academy today is awash in books of all formats. Many classes continue to use printed books, while others use laptops or e-readers. It is immaterial to us whether students use print or electronic forms to read Chaucer and Shakespeare. In fact, Cushing students are checking out more books than before, making extensive use of e-readers in our library collection. Cushing’s success could inspire other schools to think about new approaches to education in this century."

Readership and circulation is up. Hmmm...

Our bigotry toward diverse formats of reading must end, because it is denying students access to skills, content and collaborative possibilities. Reading can be solitary and books reinforce the role of the reader alone with print. But knowledge and creativity are global. The time of the student alone in the metaphorical stacks or being "lost in a book" is over and has been replaced with connection, new perspectives, and a broader and more dynamic canvas for learning. 

Reading is more relevant and critical than ever.  Paper and books aren't going anywhere. However, if we want robust programs, increasing readership and to become the hub of learning and skill-building for our schools, we had better diversify and start offering our students greater choice.

Good job, Cushing. I'm taking notes (some on paper, and some are digital.)

Photo Credit:
Flickr Creative Commons

Paper

Uploaded on September 30, 2009
by spikeblacklab

2010

"It's not the rats you need to worry about. If you want to know if a ship is going to sink, watch what the richest passengers do... If your ship is sinking, get out now. By the time the rats start packing, it's way too late."

Seth Godin's very smart post highlights the importance of paying close attention to your "market," adjusting your service model, and remaining relevant to your customers. In the world of school libraries the rats leaving the ship is analogous to finding your job on the cut list. By the time your program is on that list it is too late.

How do you avoid this fate? Be curious, be bold, find out what the smartest school librarians and educational tech visionaries from around the world are doing and saying, and see how it can be implemented to the benefit of your students and faculty.  Embrace the unknown, and be prepared to jettison the familiar if it fails to move learning and student achievement forward. Be a crucial voice in discussions of change and innovation and the first to roll up your sleeves to make it happen.

As we embark on the second decade of the 21st century, these are a few of the projects I believe will keep the school library central and indispensable.

1. Transform the "library" into a "learning commons." Libraries are crucial in this age of abundant information, but only if they provide relevant support for those actively navigating the digital environment. Hang up your "shhh," stop fussing over the coffee cups, welcome students in with wide open arms along with their mess and Facebook. Give them new tools so that they can find, evaluate, and create. Teach them how be ethical and productive citizens. Teach them how to communicate responsibly and publish to the world. Creativity can be messy and loud. Get over it. Welcome to the learning commons.
   
2. Stop paper training students. Push information out to students digitally and also teach them the critical skills of finding and evaluating it for themselves. Paper is our orientation, but doesn't do any favors for our digital natives. The age of the reading packet is gone because it can't be accessed by students with reading disabilities. It can't be posted to a collaborative platform for analysis and discussion. It can't be linked or embedded, and it isolates the learner. Students need to manage their information and materials using  RSS feeds, web portals, and collaborative platforms. They deserve the opportunity to share learning with an authentic audience made up of peers, experts in the field, or a global audience. Use paper only as a last resort.
   
3. Be a leading voice in bringing new ideas to your community as a tool for evaluating current practice. Change is hard. Be enthusiastic of innovation and supportive yet positive with those who may feel overwhelmed.  There is no such thing as a "dumb question". Recognize and value the best of "old school" methods with the same vigor you use to promote the new.
   
4. Advocate for the diversification of formats.  Planning for the future still involves books, but collections should also include ebooks, MP3 books, graphic novels, and collections that are rich in media. This means leading investigations into new technologies that will allow us to manage, catalog, and curate media productions, media files, student artwork, student performances and more. This means researching vendors, piloting digital textbooks, and supporting hand held digital devices for students.
5. Treasure and promote curiosity and creativity in our students. Bringing new tools  to teachers as a way to provide alternate ways for students to find information, create meaning, and share their learning is a unique skill librarians can bring to their schools.

Wishing everyone curiosity, joy, and healthy budgets in 2010.

Robin

Blog inspiration:
Seth Godin
Seth's Blog 
It's not the rats you need to worry about

Photo Credit:
2010
R. Cicchetti
Using LiveBrush

Sand in my keyboard

Google Books has come a long way. If you want to play around with alternate formats for reading, check it out.

Personally, I can't read for extended amounts of time off a computer screen. More than 2 pages and I hit print. However, I absolutely love digital ink and the Kindle, so am prepared to give Google Books another shot.

Not sure how well it will go on the beach this summer. Sometimes sticking with print is still the best option. Happy reading!