Librarian Brings Kindles into the Classroom

Kathy Parker did a fine job sharing her experience with 7th and 8th graders and thier use of the Kindles in her article, Librarian Brings Kindles into the Classroom and I can definitely see the appeal of Kindles especially in the middle and upper levels, but the "unknown" recurring costs would seem to preclude most library budgets from being able to have them.  The other factor that I've wondered about is "keeping them".  You'd want any child to be able to check it out to use, but there are some children who have recurring damages to print books whether it is by themselves or family members and others who may be homeless, in shelters or in other situations where having either a "safe place" to keep the kindle or being able to keep much of anything due to space restrictions and recurring moves might make them less than ideal candidates for checking out a kindle, yet they are memebers of one of the groups of people who might benefit most from the use of the school technology.  As technology continues to explode, reductions in internal size and costs to produce the item, and with the creation of the "Tuffy-style" Kindle, Kindles will become more affordable for a widening range of Media Centers. 

Another consideration, is that currently DPS school media collections are shared in Destiny for cataloguing purposes and as individual inter-library loan checkouts.  As e-books become more of the norm, will the schools continue to have their own purchases or will the schools join to purchase items or even have just a central DPS entity purchase for the "group" to use and have a DPS e-library like the Durham County Library currently does?  For the upper grades, this will probably become the norm, but for the elementary crowd, there is still a need for printed books.  An example is the Birthday Book Giveaway that we do at Hillandale.  Each child comes to the Media Center on the giveaway date for their birth month and chooses a desired book from 25-75 possibilities.  Many teachers and parents have commented on the positive reactions of receiving and sharing the pleasure of getting the book with family and classmates that the children experienced.  The excitement and feel of a new book that you get to select just wouldn't be the same with a download.

Librarian Brings Kindles into the Classroom