Books or ebooks?…. or both?

Our students have just had three weeks of holidays. Staff have been back for a Professional Development week, learning new technologies, planning and building the learning community here.

Our IRC has a comprehensive print collection but digital ebook resources for some curriculum areas are being purchased as funds allow. According to Kindelizaton: Are Books Obsolete? by Stephen Krashen,  the sales of paperback books are declining in comparison to the sale of ebooks.  This is based on the Amazon sales figures for January 2011 compared to January 2010. The point is made in this article that ebook readers and ebooks are less available to students of “high poverty families and under-funded libraries” and states that Ebooks are allowing the print-rich to get even print-richer”.

On the other hand in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 July, 2011 an article by Faith Sands looks at the merits of books and compares the reading experience of books with that of ipad and ebooks. Her opinion is that “There’s no substitute for books”.

As we constantly weigh up library budgets and the reading experience versus convenience and innovation, research based decisions have to be made.

Vote for the ‘best-dressed’ Phoebe!

Recently our K-2 classes took part in the National Simultaneous Storytime event. They enjoyed the book Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clements and each class then decorated their own class “Phoebe”.  We would like everyone to vote for the best-dressed Phoebe and a prize will be then awarded to the winning class! Voting closes on 20 August with prizes being awarded in Book Week.
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National Simultaneous Storytime: “Feathers for Phoebe”

At precisely 11:00AM today our Kindergarten to Year 2 students gathered for a story. The picture book Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clements was selected by The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) to be read simultaneously across Australia – the aim being to improve literacy and promote reading.
The students were totally engrossed in the story which was shown digitally and each of the nine classes left with a little grey bird and a packet of feathers to go towards an ‘outfit’ for Phoebe. These will enter the “Best Dressed Phoebe” competition and be judged next week. As they left teachers could be heard muttering “…hot glue gun” and “wait till you see ours” ; so next week we should have a wonderful library display!

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