As usual I owe a debt of gratitude to LM_NET for all their help.
I’ve been researching the whole ereader thing for awhile now. I really needed to find out if ereaders could access the Follett ebooks our library already owns. Turns out that if they have a usable browser, it IS possible.
It appears that the Nook and of course the iPad work quite well with the Follett ebooks, as long as they are connected to the internet. I tried to access my Follett eBooks via the Kindle browser, but got an error message when I clicked on the links.
I needed this input to finish a report for our district. They are considering the purchase of ereaders and/or ipads. No one has asked for my opinion at this point, but that has never stopped me before. So… I sent them this report to help with their decision. I decided to post it here also in case anyone could make use of it. Thanks again!
eReader/eBooks
I know that the district has been talking about ebooks/ereaders. I am doing some research on the issues involved in a school/school library setting. Here is what I have found out so far:
ISSUES TO CONSIDER:
The high school library currently owns about 20 ebooks from Follett (our book supplier). They cannot be downloaded, but they CAN be viewed on a browser. They are all research books at this point. My plan for the high school library has been to phase out the purchase of non-fiction print books in favor of the Follett ebooks.
The public library provides a service called Overdrive. With a library card and a pin number, it is very easy to download ebooks and audioboooks for free. They are then available for reading for 21 days. They can also be placed on hold and renewed, just like print books. Here is the post I sent out to our staff offering this as a training option.
http://rachslibrary.edublogs.org/2011/01/19/kindleereader-costing-you-money/
Overdrive is a service to consider for our school libraries in the future. I have no idea of the cost right now. It would be beneficial, because we could build a collection tailored for our student needs.
If we go to ereaders, we need to deal with replacement costs if the readers are damaged when they are loaned to students. If we purchase only research ebooks, then ipads and dedicated ereaders would probably be fine for in-school only usage. If we purchase fiction, that is a different story. We would have to be willing to loan the readers.
HARDWARE:
Kindle: Works only with Amazon ebooks. Does NOT work with either Overdrive books from the public library or the Follett ebooks that the hs library already owns.
NOOK: Works with Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Overdrive, and Follett. Color or black and white model available. ($249 or $149 at the Barnes & Noble website)
iPads: Gotta love them. They not only work very well with all the formats, but also have so many other uses. The downside is the cost.
Sony eReader: I have not investigated this one as yet.
Borders eReader: Much less expensive, but the company is in trouble. Not sure if it handles ebooks in other formats such as Follett, Overdrive etc.
MY OPINION:
iPads and NOOKs are the best choice because they handle a wide variety of formats, including the formats that are already available in the high school library. I would suggest that for students, iPads be used in school only. The NOOKs are cheaper and could be purchased for use both in school and at home
As usual I owe a debt of gratitude to LM_NET for all their help with this information.
I’ve been researching the whole ereader thing for awhile now. I really needed to find out if ereaders could access the Follett ebooks our library already owns. Turns out that if they have a usable browser, it IS possible.
It appears that the Nook and of course the iPad work quite well with the Follett ebooks, as long as they are connected to the internet. I tried to access my Follett eBooks via the Kindle browser, but got an error message when I clicked on the links.
I needed this input to finish a report for our district. They are considering the purchase of ereaders and/or ipads. No one has asked for my opinion, but that has never stopped me before. So… I sent them this report to help with their decision. I decided to post it here also in case anyone could make use of it.
eReader/eBooks
I know that the district has been talking about ebooks/ereaders. I am doing some research on the issues involved in a school/school library setting. Here is what I have found out so far:
ISSUES TO CONSIDER:
- The high school library currently owns about 20 ebooks from Follett (our book supplier). They cannot be downloaded, but they CAN be viewed on a browser. They are all research books at this point. My plan for the high school library has been to phase out the purchase of non-fiction print books in favor of the Follett ebooks.
- The public library provides a service called Overdrive. With a library card and a pin number, it is very easy to download ebooks and audioboooks for free. They are then available for reading for 21 days. They can also be placed on hold and renewed, just like print books. Here is the post I sent out to our staff offering this as a training option:
Kindle/Nook/iPad costing you money?
- Overdrive is a service to consider for our school libraries in the future. I have no idea of the cost right now. It would be beneficial, because we could build a collection tailored for our student needs.
- If we go to ereaders, we need to deal with replacement costs if the readers are damaged when they are loaned to students. If we purchase only research ebooks, then ipads and dedicated ereaders would probably be fine for in-school only usage. If we purchase fiction, that is a different story. We would have to be willing to loan the readers.
HARDWARE:
Kindle: Works only with Amazon ebooks. Does NOT work with either Overdrive books from the public library or the Follett ebooks that the hs library already owns.
NOOK: Works with Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Overdrive, and Follett. Color or black and white model available. ($249 or $149 at the Barnes & Noble website)
iPad: Gotta love them. They not only work very well with all the formats, but also have so many other uses. The downside is the cost.
Sony eReader: I have not investigated this one as yet.
Borders eReader: Much less expensive, but the company is in trouble. Not sure if it handles ebooks in other formats such as Follett, Overdrive etc.
MY OPINION:
iPads and NOOKs are the best choice because they handle a wide variety of formats, including the formats that are already available in the high school library. I would suggest that for students, iPads be used in school only. The NOOKs are cheaper and could be purchased for use both in school and at home.
Hi Jacquie,
I would add only one caution to your fine summary. The iPad does not support flash and some e-books for younger readers with a lot of animation – I think PebbleGo, is one – require it.
Just something to think about,
Doug
Thanks Doug. I have not tried any children’s books. I was excited to discover that the books from Overdrive were now usable on the iPad with the Overdrive iPhone app… but have not yet tried any children’s books. Our district is already committed to iPads for other purposes and for awhile I wondered if we should just go that route with Nooks as well. But given the price of iPads and their current limitations, I am more interested in the Nook as an ereader.
I sent the summary to our superintendent, our tech director, and our library department. Within 10 minutes the superintendent had put ereaders and their attendant issues on the tech committe agenda for our next meeting, Glad I didn’t keep quiet and wait for someone to ask my opinion!
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I knew that there are some serious limitations with kindle. Too bad because that is what my husband bought me for Christmas. I was not expecting anything of the sort for Christmas…having never even discussed ebooks with my husband. I didn’t have the heart to tell him…but I wish I could download books from the library.
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Hi, Jacquie,
I too have been researching ereaders and am leaning toward the Nook for our school library. As I learn more, more questions arise. What are your thoughts on the Nook Color vs. the B/W? We gave our daughter the B/W wireless with 3G for Christmas. For school, I don’t think we’d need the 3G since I’ll be doing all the downloading and the device will be password protected. I’m leaning toward the B/W for school because it is more “book-like” and my expectation of students is it to be used as such. Plus, the battery life is better. However, if they never use the wireless and I can set it to stay off, then I don’t think the battery life is such an issue. Unless, the Nook Color has unique and more user-friendly features other than being back-lit, then I don’t think I can justify the price difference between the Color and the B/W just to have fancier buttons for students. Thoughts? Thanks for your help!
Stephanie
I just don’t know enough about the Nooks yet. I am wondering if I can get Barnes&Noble to let me try them out, if they know we are considering a bulk buy for the district.
I am interested in the color for elementary level, so the more colorful primary level books could be viewed.For secondary, the black and white would be best for upper level novels. On the other hand, if we purchase non-fiction ebooks, a color device would be best for all levels. I guess ultimately, funding will make the decision.
The times surely are ‘achangin’!
Doug brought out an excellent point re: Apple not supporting flash with the iPad at this point in time.
I have both the iPad and the B/N Nook and love them both. The iPad is much more than an eBook reader, though. Both it and the Nook support a variety of eBook formats. This table will fill in the blanks for you on this one:
http://www.ebookreaderguide.com/top-5-ebook-readers-compared/
I’m at an elementary school media center and am exploring the potential of eBooks for my kids. Suffice it to say I’m in the exploration/holding pattern and am testing a variety of options.
Thank you for your input. It is certainly up in the air what we will be doing. We have ipads right now, but they are for in-school use only. I have my own personal iPad and was SO excited to FINALLY be able to download Overdrive. It is the iPhone version not a full-fledged iPad version, but it is acceptable as a platform to download free books from the public library. When I retire in June, I plan to treat myself to a Nook. I am glad to get my two cents into the district before I ride off into the sunset 🙂
I came across these posts after doing a search trying to see if Follett books work on nooks. I just purchased some nooks and nook colors for my school library to lend out. They are wonderful, however, B&N really is not ready yet to totally commit to allow easy purchasing of ebooks for schools. Between time consuming purchase orders and having to back up the nooks with a school credit card and then password protect the devices, it can be a nuisance, especially for busy librarians who also do the purchasing and cataloging. That’s why I am anxious to see how Follett, Baker and Taylor and overdrive in general will work on the nooks. I have to register them yet, but already have a record in Destiny and copies ready to add! The times are changing and it is very exciting to finally have these ereaders, books and operating systems/apps able to accommodate us. Now we have to get B&N to take the full plunge! Especially since some of us already have sound accounts with them. Thank you all for the posts.
Follett is updating Destiny in December and adding an iPAD app for downloading ebooks from Follett Shelf.
Thanks for this thorough posting. It is great!
A recent talk with Follett produced intelligence that Kindle app is close for Follettshelf. If you are just buying noninteractive books, you don’t need Flash to read the books on the iPad. One issue for me right now: supposedly Follett is implementing an upgrade to Destiny 10 that will allow it to work seamlessly with Follettshelf. Currently, Shelf can’t “see” the user names and passwords in Destiny. I am waiting and hoping this happens very soon so that I don’t have to enter this info by hand . . .
Hi Tina and Susan. Thanks for your reply. Since I wrote this, kindle has become a bit more user friendly by allowing access via Overdrive. I sent this recommendation to my district tech committee, along with more detail requesting a higher end nook. Did they listen? Of course no! They bought the Nook Color for elementary – but we got Nooks that can access only Nook books. Grrrrr!!! Oh well. I am retired now. I am suposed to no longer care I guess…. 🙂
Dear Jackie and contributors! This blog has been so interesting! We are in the process of buying e-books, but want them to be compatible with various e-readers and also various e-books! Thank you for all the information provided! It has been very useful!
Very happy that you have found it useful. Just in case it did not make it into any of the other comments….Kindle and Overdrive are now compatible. Also Follett has an app for downloading their ebooks.
Best of luck as you get into the ebook scene!
I am so glad to have found this conversation. I am in the process of ordering some Follett ebooks for my Elementary library for the fist time. Your insights have been helpful.
Glad it is useful. Do you remember how you found it? This blog only gets about 5-10 hits per day, bit this particular post seems to have “legs” and has really been getting around. I can’t seem to find out if another blog linked to it, so I am curious.
I searched Follett and overdrive for schools and found this conversation helpful. I hope you will post updates! Online Ebooks currently available by the library catalog are not seeing much use with our laptop usere. Maybe a backpackable color IPad/phone would make a difference if it opened up to paperback size, was lightweight and cheap enough? Let me know if you find this at the cost of 4bks each per student?
Glad you found this post useful. It does need to be updated. I will look itover and see if there is something I can add or delete. It has been a popular post. Must be linked somewhere else to get as many views as it still does. Our Follett ebooks were used, with prompting from us, during research projects…but not for fun reading. I think reading novels and narrative fiction is far more suited to an ipad or an ebook. I like the overdrive model of downloading and reading on ereaders/ipads owned by the borrower or borrowed from the library. I can’t really see pre-loaded devices appealing to most kids…or adults for that matter. But I know a lot of libraries are going that route. Thanks for commenting!