An interesting thing happened after Christmas vacation. EReaders exploded at McCullough. We knew they were out there, and DinoCybrarians like myself had managed to totally ignore the concept of digital books (gasp!), and that there were alternatives to paper books. I knew several teachers at McCullough had eReaders and loved them. I chose to ignore the whole thing, for awhile, anyway.
I was forced to acknowledge that a good percentage of our students received eReaders as gifts during the holidays, and many adults in our school community owned them, too. It seemed eReaders were in the air, and I needed to look into this.
I really did not know where to begin. I did some internet research and found a few sites that were helpful. Cnet published an excellent article in November 2010 comparing Ipad, Nook, and Kindle. I asked around and did a little more research. Of course everyone I talked to who owned a particular eReader stated their brand was the best, and I also discovered I had to careful of the bias in some online articles. I settled on the Barnes and Noble eReader, NookColor, simply because B & N is an approved vendor in our district. The $249.00 price was within my budget, and frankly I was mesmerized by the color feature that was added to the new Nooks in November. The Nooks also have a very good internet browser, and there is recent news leaked to cnet promising the addition of Android apps and Flash updates, plus an enhanced brower in April. This will make the already amazing NookColor a true Android tablet!
The actual purchase of the NookColors went much more smoothly than I anticipated. I order six with library budget funds. I suspect I was one of the first to order eReaders with school funds, and it could not have gone better from start to finish. The Nooks were delivered from the warehouse in a timely matter. Obviously our administration and district supports the introduction of eReaders in our schools!
Now it was time to load the Nooks with ebooks. One account may be used for up to six Nooks, so I set up an account and registered all the Nooks under this account. As ebooks are added to the account, either online or on one of the Nooks, the rest of the Nooks will have the exact same content.
I began to peruse the vast library of free books that I had been told Barnes and Noble has available. I typed in "free ebooks" in the Browse box. Oh dear, I have a list of obscure books that are $.99. There is a sorting feature, so I sorted by price. Here we are, I finally see some free books. The first truly free book on the list is "Adventures of Harry Richmond". The second free book is "The Conduct of Life" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I scrolled down and found 100's of free books with the same interest level, which was no interest at all. (Sorry, Harry and Ralph.) My students are ages 11-13, and with all due respect to Harry and Ralph, I don't think my kids would read these "free" books. I scrolled down and found "The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook". My junior high kids could possibly be a little interested in that, so I downloaded it. Well, now it wants a credit card. So I had to put in a credit card on this account, even though the ebook was free. I love the Nooks, but I'm displeased with the ebook purchase procedure so far.
My assistant and I took a few of the Nooks home for Spring Break to learn how to use them. It was nice to discover that the Nook can be de-registered from the school account, and re-registered to a personal account. I purchased some good books (with my personal money, of course) and I discovered a wonderful "LendMe" feature where friends can share ebooks on their Nooks. Good to know a Nook can be used at school and at home, it's interchangeable! Once again, the "free" ebooks for adults were mostly out of copyright and not popular.
I decided now I must purchase ebooks for our students to read on the Nooks at school. That's when I hit the wall of State and District financial constraints. We are not allowed to purchase gift cards with school funds, period. Barnes and Noble offers a Line of Credit, and also accepts purchase orders. I am meeting with our district finance people next week to see if something can be arranged to help us out. More on this later.
In the meantime, I am using a Barnes and Noble gift card loaded with donated money to buy ebooks for the students. Sales tax is being charged on my purchases; another bummer for a school purchase, which qualifies for tax-exempt status. My school account still must have a credit card as the default payment method, but it will take monies from the gift card first. I am very careful to keep track of my spending so my personal credit card is not hit with a charge.
I am gradually introducing the Nooks to the students in the library. I am just putting them out for the students to read and get comfortable with them while in the library. Not checking them out yet!
