Digital library content spans fiction, nonfiction, test prep, professional development materials and more.
Overdrive’s catalog has 4 million ebooks, audiobooks and videos, and is used by 17,000 schools worldwide, says David Burleigh, the company’s director of brand.
Schools pick which titles they want access to, how many copies they want and for how long to lend them. Groups of schools can sign up together to share access.
Link to main story: Big leap for school libraries
On the reference side, Gale’s In Context series combines the company’s content with primary sources and material pulled from partners. There are articles from newspapers and academic journals, audio from NPR, and videos from AP and NASAall of which is updated regularly.
Lemma Shomali, Gale’s director of K12 products, says schools want to add material and free up space.
“(They say) let’s get rid of these encyclopedias from the year 2000 that we have on the shelf because we can cross-search them electronically” she says. “Instead, let’s bring students here to use the 3D printer or work on their robotics competition.”
Abby Spegman is a freelance writer based in Washington.
