Last month a huge step toward getting every child in America access to amazing books was taken with the official launch of Open eBooks! The White House announced the news to the excitement of librarians, educators and families across the United States on February 24th. Open eBooks is part of the White House ConnectED Initiative which aims to increase access to digital resources as a component of enriching K-12 education. You can read the official press release here.

The project is made possible through a partnership with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), the New York Public Library, Baker and Taylor, First Book, and made possible by generous commitments of publishers with funding support provided in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. What a great example of many institutions coming together for a greater cause!

The Open eBooks app is now available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. This app provides access to thousands of free eBooks, including many award-winning and popular titles, to youth in low-income communities via their smartphone or tablet. The app not only provides access to children across the country, but also provides access to children on military bases! To get access to the app youth, or an adult working with them, can download the app and enter credentials provided by a person registered with First Book to enable access to the eBooks.

So how do you get access? If you work at a library that serves at least 70% of children from low-income families, and your library hosts a program specifically focused on supporting these youth, you may register with First Book here. Eligibility can be determined by a variety of factors, including the E-Rate of your library or Title I eligibility of the neighborhood school. After you are registered, you can request access codes for Open eBooks through First Book, whose Marketplace is the eBook distributor for the project. You can request as many codes as you would like for each collection of Open eBooks. Once you have your codes, you can distribute the codes to the children or caregivers to use with the Open eBook app on their personal devices.

Some great features include the ability to read without checkouts or holds, which makes access to reading materials even easier for users. Youth can borrow up to 10 books at a time and replace each book with a new book as many times as they’d like.

Did you know that you can help choose the next round of eBooks for Open eBooks? The DPLA Curation Corps is a group of librarians and other information professionals who help coordinate books for inclusion in the program.  The DPLA is currently accepting applications to for the second class of Curation Corps members! You can find more information about getting involved and how to apply here. The deadline to apply is April 1st!

The goal of Open eBooks is to grow a love of reading and hopefully encourage children to read more often, either through using their local library, at school, or by using another eBook reading app. Even if you won’t have the ability to distribute codes at your library, you can still spread the great news and help to make your community aware of this awesome project. I can’t wait to see this program grow and expand!

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Nicole Lee Martin is a Children’s Librarian at the Rocky River Public Library in Rocky River, OH and is writing this post for the Children and Technology Committee. You can reach her at [email protected].

The post Opening Digital Doors with Open eBooks appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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I am excited to see the publication of two milestones for those interested in bringing digital literacy in to the library for kids and families.

One is the publication of the full Young Children,New Media, and Libraries:A Guide for Incorporating New Media into Library Collections, Services, and Programs for Families and Children Ages 0-5. This book has been written as an online serial over the past year or so by some of the true movers, shakers and thinkers on this issue in the nation. It can be downloaded or accessed online.

The second is ALSC's new White Paper on Media Mentorship in Libraries Serving Youth. This paper was adopted by the ALSC board in March and is now available for downloading. It is a straightforward, well-reasoned, well- researched and helpful guide that places libraries and librarians squarely in a digital literacy role we so beautifully performed with print and nonprint literacy over the years. It is available on page chuck full of information on the many ways libraries are working on media mentorship.

While some see attention to digital literacy and evolving our roles in libraries to include being media mentors as THE.DEATH.OF.LOVE.OF.BOOKS.AS.WE.KNOW.IT, I remain remarkably sanguine.

Could be I've seen four decades of growth, evolution and radical change in libraries since the heady days of the 1970s. Could be I think that Ranganathan's Fifth Law posited in 1931 (The Library is a growing organism) is actually true. Could be that transliteracy and the remarkable resiliency of libraries to meet the community's needs trump any fear we might have of change. Could be I just like change.

Whatever.

I welcome the great work being done nationally, regionally and locally to embrace digital literacy and media mentorship and applaud everyone who is stepping up and on. Go you's!!!

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Need more ways to polish up your thoughts and planning on technology and kids.

You can start with the ongoing online chapter-by-chapter publication of Young Children, New Media and Libraries in Little elit, and reading this blog for ideas on using ipads in programming, seminal thoughts on librarians as media mentors and much more.

You can attend this nifty LITA (Library Information and Technology Association of ALA) webinar Technology and Youth Services Programs: Early Literacy Apps and More in May with Claire Moore of Darien CT Library.

You can stay updated on libraries that have been using ipads in-house at blogs like Reading with Red.

And now we're thinking about the nifty and new to the market Launchpads.

There's a world of things to discover! Let's do this!!

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I love technology even when I'm less than facile with it. Having come from the horse and buggy days when overdue notices were handwritten, check-out cards (by the thousands) were hand alphabetized for each due date and slowly searched to unite card with returned item, and phone notices ate up a morning each week, how can I not love?

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Looking for ALA Annual programs on apps for kids? ALSC will be hosting two educational programs on apps – “The Apps are All Right! Exploring the Role of Apps in Children’s and Teen Services” and “Whet Your APPetite: Rapid Reviews of Apps for Children from Preschool to Tweens”, which will take place at the 2014 ALA Annual Conference.

The Apps are All Right! program is scheduled for Saturday, June 28, 2014, 8:30 – 10:00am PT in Room S230 of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Designed as a primer for children’s and teen librarians, this program will offer a dynamic overview of the place of the app as a new format within the library profession. Four panelists will provide relevant research and examples from practice with diverse populations of children and teens. Participants will also be invited to explore the continuously evolving rationale for strengthening the role of the children’s and teen librarian in app recommendation for the communities libraries serve.

The Whet Your APPetite program is scheduled for Sunday, June 29, 2014, 1:00 – 2:30pm PT in Pavilion 11 of the Las Vegas Hotel. This program will showcase some new and favorite apps selected by ALSC’s Children and Technology Committee and Digital Content Task Force. A variety of app recommendations will be paired with ideas for how to use them with children in your library.

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It has been a rambunctious few weeks on the alsc-l listserv and then followed up on the ALSC blog. What is ruffling feathers and raising tempers?  The basic question of how we as youth librarians incorporate and curate digital content for kids - including very young kids.

A simple request to share thoughts with an app developer passed on to the listserv by Cen Campbell over at Little eLit blog elicited more action than I've seen on alscl in a while.  Some people got quite off topic with flame-worthy insistence that digital content had no place in the library lives of kids between 0-5. The ALSC blog guest posts followed - here, here and here.

I never weighed in on this brouhaha except in comments. I will tell you, though, I was dismayed at some of the attitudes displayed and the arguments made against including digital content for young kids. Although we haven't made much of a leap at our library, it is a direction I expect our team will be going much sooner rather than later.  Again, Cen pointed the way in her Wrestling Your Bear post at the beginning of November. That  coupled with the provocative thinking in the Libraries and Transliteracy blog (now finished) really informed my thinking.

Cen's thoughts dovetail with mine. This semester I have been teaching a graduate level Children's and YA Services course for UW-Madison.  One of our textbooks, Adele Fasick's From Boardbook to Facebook, published in 2011, makes the case for the direction youth libraries will inevitably be moving in. It's a direction that seamlessly blends traditional print with digital content to meet the needs of our families. I would be remiss as an instructor - and as a practicing librarian - not to look further and more deeply into the future that is truly happening right now. My students need to be open to the possibilities they will experience at the beginning - as well as at the end - of their careers.

While I appreciate the hesitation and worry about screen time expressed by people, I also think it is incredibly short-sighted and darn near dereliction of duty not to stand-up, research-up, read-up, learn-up, understand-up AND change-up for positive support and curation of digital content for kids. Arguing as Luddites that screens time is a no-no below a certain age ignores the rich (and sometimes stupid and banal) content that parents are tapping into already. As youth librarians we need to understand and lead, model and recommend to help our families find the best for their kids.

I hope people stop thinking of why not and start thinking of why and how. We serve our communities best when we add to our knowledge base, bridge the divides - and change and evolve with the times. By learning from and collaborating with each other we all gain.

Image: 'Canyon do Buracão' http://www.flickr.com/photos/58817442@N00/352819555 Found on flickrcc.net

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