Have you ever wanted to reach out to other teacher librarians to get ideas, collaborate with other teacher librarians to "talk shop" or network with other teacher librarians?
If so, Iowa's AEAs are providing you that opportunity! Join AEA library and media consultants for the monthly "Better Together" webinar series. This year's online conversations will focus on the School Librarian Role in Pandemic Learning Conditions from AASL. In between all the serious conversations, we'll also allow time for you to build relationships with other teacher librarians across the state because we're BETTER together!
And the best part? No cost, no long agenda and no drive time! Check out this online flyer for all the details.
Over the last few years Heartland AEA and other AEAs have created a robust ebook collection of fiction and nonfiction titles in MackinVIA. Much of the collection has been built with recommendations from teachers. There are multiple copies of most titles, but not enough titles to meet the needs of a whole-class read or unit study for a specific period of time.
Some background.
Ebooks are sold by publishers in different licensing models—perpetual license, 2-year subscription, 26-checkout and more. Why do we mention this? The publishers determine which titles are available in which models and the price. Heartland AEA looked at a couple of vendors that aggregate ebook content from publishers and then resell. Mackin had the publisher relationships, titles, plus the MackinVIA reader that most of our students already use.
The new class set model.
- This summer many K-12 publishers have (finally!) decided to offer a class set licensing model. Schools can order x number of ebook copies that can be assigned to individual students for a set number of days (usually 30, 60, or 90 days). It’s basically a rental.
- If your school, for example, orders 50 copies and 47 were used this school year, the remainder will roll over for next year.
- How much? It depends. For budgeting purposes, you could use an average of $3.50/copy. Some titles are $.86 some are $5.30.
- Mackin will provide the school a title registration code for the student. The individual class set title is only available to that student.
Why consider class sets?
- Guaranteed availability for the number of days you purchase.
- Familiar ebook reader format (in MackinVIA and AEA Scout.)
- Students can write in the book—highlight, underline, take notes.
- When the license expires, the notes and highlights remain in the student’s account for easy access.
- Roll-over unused ebooks to the next school year.
Before you order.
You might want to think about who will schedule and take on some admin responsibilities for creating accounts. Click here and scroll down to the Admin Overview of Class Sets video to determine what setup will work best for your school or district.
How to order.
- Create an account at www.mackin.com. Be sure to click Use Iowa State Contract Pricing when you create your admin account profile. We’re pleased to report that there is a 7% discount through AEA Purchasing--AEPA Contract #020-C.
- You can search for the individual titles or authors at www.mackin.com.
How to assign the ebook to a student.
Heartland AEA hopes that this new class set model will help support your curriculum. We also encourage you to continue to recommend titles that Heartland AEA can purchase for the general MackinVIA collection.
The Heartland AEA Library & Digital Resources newsletter is now available. Make sure to follow the newsletter and share it with your colleagues! In this issue…
- From my mailbox to yours... (library webinars)
- Representation Matters: Annotated and Sortable List of New Ebooks and Audiobooks
- Celebrities Reading Children's Lit
- Ebooks Added in September and October
- News Literacy Project and News Goggles
- Young Voter's Guide to Social Media
- Clipart: New Name, New Access
- DVD, Books/Cassette Kits, and Leap Frog Give-away
