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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

An Electronic Visit to the Library

To make a short story long I have a couple of students in our extended year program who earn a visit to my office to spend time with me as part of their positive behavior support plan. One of these students loves interactive stories, so today after work I was bookmarking some of our favorite interactive book sites on the office computer and went to my local library's website to add their free (with a library card) link to Bookflix.

While I was on the library website I started exploring some of the things that they offer online, either for free or with a library card. I am excited about using many of their offerings in the fall with my students. I can't wait to explore some of the audio books that can be downloaded (and sometimes even burned to a CD) with some students via Overdrive. (I am feeling very excited about keeping my Audible.com credits for myself; call me greedy!) You can search if your library has access to Overdrive on their search site or at your library's site.

In addition my public library offers access to the following paid online services for free with your library card as well:
A little clicking around and I even discovered that a library in our consortium has free access to Tumblebooks! Now if only one of the consortium members had free access to Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr. I would be hysterical with glee.

Did you know that my public library is so cool they have a Myspace page? Yours might too.

What does your public library offer?

4 comments:

  1. Okay, I may be biased because I am a librarian, but libraries ROCK! :) Public libraries offer all sorts of cool stuff! I encourage everyone to go to their local library and ask them what all they offer. You might be surprised!

    Libraries can also help people get connected with the free Talking Books program through the Library of Congress, which is for people who are unable to read standard print or who have a reading disability. (If you need more info, feel free to check out my blog.)

    One cool thing libraries offer is interlibrary loan (ILL). In most libraries, ILL is free. Through ILL, you can request any book, DVD, CD, etc., and your library will request it from another library. Then you go to your local library to pick it up. In my opinion, this could mean you never need to buy a book again - just request it for free from your public library, and they will get it through ILL for you, if they don't already have it... all for free!

    Thanks for the great library post! Your blog is terrific!

    -Jaime/Talking Books Librarian at http://talkingbookslibrarian.blogspot.com/

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  2. In addition to Overdrive audio books, our library ebranch also has videos via Overdrive and books via Adobe Reader and Mobipocket. The branches have playaway books - small digital players that fit into a pocket or can be worn on a strap around the neck. A playaway comes with earphones and has a complete book loaded on it.

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  3. I thought it was great that you are considered a reward! I love our library and using overdrive. I also download books on CDs to my Ipod to listen to and then delete when I'm done.

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  4. I have to admit that students visiting me as a reward started as a behavior intervention for STAFF many summers ago. I don't like having students sent to me for acting up and it used to happen all the time, so instead I set out from the first day each summer to make spending time with me a good thing and not a bad thing. Older students earn lunch with me and younger students vary on what they do on a visit to see Kate (Bookflix, You Tube, painting, a snack, music), but it is so much more fun to have excited kiddos come up to visit when they are proud of themselves than to have angry kiddos dragged up when they have been showing some challenging behaviors.

    Students visiting is a reward for me too, a nice break from paperwork and the decidedly non-fun activities of being an administrator (which is why I will be in a classroom during the school year for many more years rather than rise through the ranks).

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