|  It's not easy being the school librarian. Tasked with fostering learning, encouraging library use, and instilling a love of reading among students, school librarians are often in high demand and short on time. We asked some of OverDrive's school library partners to share tips for making the most of your digital collection while balancing an ever-expanding to-do list.
- Train students using hands-on demonstrations
Respondents agreed: there's no better way to teach students how to use a digital collection than by having them do it themselves. Try hosting one class at a time and supervising students as they access your school's digital collection, borrow a book, and—if they're using devices—install OverDrive's mobile app and authorize it with an Adobe ID. Once students try it out for themselves, our librarians reported, they'll continue to use the digital collection on their own. - Kids and teens love technology—harness that interest!
Show students how eBooks and audiobooks from your school library work with the devices they already know and love. - Train parents of young students
If you're catering to students in the lower elementary grades, focus training efforts on the parents, who are often in charge of devices at home. - Take advantage of time-saving tools in Content Reserve
Content Reserve offers features to help you save time and ensure that you never miss titles that fit your needs. Try saving your popular searches (basic or advanced) in the Content Reserve marketplace, or check out the automated collection development tools located under the Select Express tab. - Designate in-house experts to help with collection development
Consider designating one or two "collection experts" per grade from your school's library or teaching staff. These experts can help pinpoint the wants and needs of their designated age group and bounce ideas off one another to arrive at the best possible collection for your school. - Partner with teachers
Demonstrate how to use your digital collection to teachers—or better yet, supervise as they do it themselves—so they can promote the service to their students and make use of it in their classrooms. - Implement fun incentives to encourage use of your digital collection
Prizes are popular, but incentives can be cheap or free, too. As one of our contributing librarians shared, "I had a contest this year—if students increased the use of the e-library by a certain percent, they got to 'pie' me in face during the pep rally! Also, I had our counselors dress up as superheroes if this percentage was raised." - Use holidays to promote your titles
Create promotions centered around holidays, celebrations and commemorations. In March alone, Women's History Month, March Madness, and the first day of spring (to name a few) provide opportunities to showcase related titles from your digital collection. - Get ahead of the technology game
As digital learning tools become more and more popular, say the librarians we surveyed, it pays to be proactive and anticipate the needs of your school. Cultivating a digital collection now lays a good foundation for future endeavors. - Enjoy the perks of your OverDrive collection
With your OverDrive collection, there's no need to deal with overdue fines or lost or damaged books. We hope you can take a second to sit back, relax and enjoy! Thanks to Paige Jaeger (Washingon-Saratoga Board of Cooperative Educational Services, N.Y.), Tana Penn (Taylor County School District, Ky.), Ann Terry (Frisco Independent School District, Texas) and other OverDrive school library partners for sharing ideas. For additional outreach ideas, take a look at these printable bookmark templates, sticker and shelf-talker templates, and more on our digital library blog. If your school is interested in OverDrive, but hasn't signed up yet, check out our free school trial. Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.  |
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