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Library
Information Services |
Spring Branch Independent School District |
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Spring Branch Librarians Are Moving Forward! |
| Thanks to our Texas Legislators who passed a bill (House
Bill 1, Article III, Rider 70 ) which
allowed school libraries .25 per student to purchase Library materials
after the district had spent $1.00 per child. Once Spring Branch
ISD met this requisite we applied for the monies. Our first
inclination was to purchase a hand held device onto which books could be
downloaded and read. Upon further investigation Dr. Bishop learned that
the companies who create and manufacture these devices were getting
ready to merge. Dr. Bishop new that he wanted move into the direction of
digital books so he began researching it. He met with
netLibrary and as a group the Librarians chose to purchase netLibrary's
eBooks. Once the decision was made to move forward the Librarians began
selecting the books that will best serve our student's needs. Over
the Summer the school district purchased about 300 titles in the Follett
eBook Collection through netLibrary with the $7,000.00 in funds received
through Rider 70.The purchase included atlases, dictionaries, reference
guides and such classics as Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
Jack London's The Call of the Wild and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure
Island.
On October 2, 2000 Mark Balderas from Follett trained the Librarians on the new technology. He trained everyone on account creation, and on the usage of all of the other many tools eBooks has to offer. You can do keyword searches in a matter of seconds. As long as the student has a computer with Internet access e-Books can be checked out anytime. We saw this as a great advantage for the parents! e-Books can not be damaged or lost, which means they will cost less over time. They will automatically check in when they are due. The font size can be adjusted for the sight impaired. There is a built in dictionary so if a child is in need of a definition all they have to do is press on the word. Beyond its digital format an e-Book serves the same function as a regular book. The Librarians were so excited about the search capabilities and conveniences the software offered that we decided to inaugurate them in the District. This inauguration grew into a reception to thank the State Legislators for their support which allowed us to purchase this new technology. Committees were formed to facilitate the reception. Our
chairpersons for the committees were: On November 2, 2000 from 4:00 - 5:00 we celebrated our new resource and what it means to the district. Karen Springer, Librarian at Northbrook High School and one of her student, Nguyen gave a beautiful demonstration on account creation and the usage of eBooks. Dr. Guthrie, Brandon Coleman, Alton Frailey, and Dr. Bishop all spoke about eBooks and the age of technology and what it means to us as faculty, parents, students, and tax payers. Despite the bad weather the Memorial High School Jazz Band greeted our guests. They did a remarkable job and received numerous compliments. Once inside our guests were greeted by a lively group of Librarians, outstanding red, white and blue decorations, and a food spread fit for a King. In attendance we had the Honorable Joe Nixon, State Representative; Dr. Hal Guthrie, Superintendent of Spring Branch ISD; Brandon Coleman, President of the |