Monday, November 29, 2010

E-Readers

Kindles and E-Books - oh my!

The LCS Libraries recently purchased two Kindle e-book readers. These readers allow the user to read the full texts of books (all kinds!), magazines, newspapers and much more. At this time, each library has one Kindle for use. Teachers are welcome to use these readers in their classrooms and the readers are available for overnight loan. Students may use the readers in the libraries.

At this time, we are hoping to provide students with access to reference sources on the High School Library Kindle. As we know, students are much more likely to head to an electronic resource than the library's reference section. By providing exceptional print reference tools in an electronic format, we can encourage students to use quality information. If you have an upcoming project which will require students to use reference tools or print resources, please let me know. One of the advantages to the e-book reader is 'on the fly' purchasing.

Our Elementary Library Kindle will be also be used for reference material, fiction, and the classics. Amazon offers many titles for free (especially those in the public domain). We will be using the Kindles to provide access to titles we otherwise couldn't afford to purchase, but should have on hand anyway - such as all of Shakepeare's works and a variety of poetry.

No matter what your project or use for the Kindle may be, please let me know if you have suggestions of titles for purchase. And, be sure to stop in the library to check out these useful and very cool devices!

OPALS

If it's not broken - fix it! Or - make it better? OPALS (our online public access library catalog) has recently undergone a makeover. If you've logged into OPALS in the past few days, you have noticed that it looks and works a little differently. Younger students may initially be visually confused by the changes (call numbers appear on the left of the screen now), but for the most part everything still works the same.

As a reminder, you can access OPALS from any computer that goes online by visiting the school website and then clicking on Library Media Center. OPALS enables you to search for books and other materials in the LCS libraries. And, remember, if you don't find what you want in OPALS, we can usually order it for you from another library.

If you have any questions about how to use OPALS or any other library resources, please be sure to stop by the library and ask. We are always happy to help!