February 16, 2013

Webooks: A novel plan for cooperative ebook purchasing | The Next Big Thing

Ebook Crowdsourcing: An award-winning plan for cooperative purchasing | The Next Big Thing

WEBOOKS, a cooperative ebook purchasing plan, has been named a Cutting Edge Technology Project by the American Library Association. This model can work for districts and consortia around the country, says Christopher Harris.

Ebooks 2013: New leasing models, cheaper devices, more content

Ebooks 2013: New leasing models, cheaper devices, more content

“School libraries, I believe, will be the coming focal point for ebook licensing,” write Chris Harris. “We have strong relationships with our K–12 publishing partners, but now we must reach out to the trade houses. As the print market weakens, the time is right for schools to present a new business proposal.”

A Call for ‘Blended Funding’: Schools must pool money to support Common Core

A Call for ‘Blended Funding’: Schools must pool money to support Common Core

How will schools pay for new CC resources, including digital? One approach is to look for existing funds within your school and district that can be redirected so that your library can purchase CC resources for the classroom. But that requires that libraries market their expertise in resource selection and collection development so that your value is obvious to others, says Christopher Harris.

A Call for Fair Ebook Pricing: Site-based pricing has small schools overcharged

A Call for Fair Ebook Pricing: Site-based pricing has small schools overcharged

Christopher Harris shares his thoughts on how rural districts—with an average size of 1,100 students and less than half the budget of the average New York school district—are, in effect, subsidizing the state’s large, wealthy, suburban systems, which are purchasing the same content at the same cost per building.

A Video Hosting Solution for Schools

Vimeo_figures350

Under Common Core, students will be writing scripts, reviewing books, making public service announcements, and creating other content, all using video. For schools, this presents a technical challenge: Where to host all this video? SLJ columnist Christopher Harris has found a solution.

We Could Be Heroes: Research plus tech skills are a hot commodity

superhero_300

Librarians are masters of information. Finding it, storing it, organizing it, retrieving it—you name it. We excel at a wide range of skills. And in today’s world, that’s the name of the game. Case in point: my team and I were recently asked to choose passages of text for a regional K–8 English language-arts exam. [...]

The post We Could Be Heroes: Research plus tech skills are a hot commodity appeared first on The Digital Shift.

A School Library Ditches Dewey

Seated_girl_library500

Christopher Harris and Kristie Miller are the latest to brave the uncharted territory that lies beyond the Dewey Decimal System. Harris recently joined the librarian in the effort to reclassify her elementary school collection. Here’s the result.

A Librarian’s Tricks for Finding Those ‘Complex Texts’ Cited in the Common Core

A Librarian’s Tricks for Finding Those ‘Complex Texts’ Cited in the Common Core

Want to help teachers find high-quality “complex texts,” a key ingredient of the new educational standards? Christopher Harris shows you how.

What’s on My iPad: A few key apps let you hit the road laptop free

What’s on My iPad: A few key apps let you hit the road laptop free

From Keynote to Penultimate, the must-have productivity apps SLJ columnist Christopher Harris puts to use while on the road.