Students “obsessed” with e-reading in Pleasant Valley School District

Pleasant Valley School District in California launched their digital library through OverDrive at the end of January this year. Since its opening, the administrators have seen phenomenal response from their staff, students and parents as they learn how to borrow and engage with eBooks and audiobooks. "Our experience with OverDrive has been nothing short of excellent," said Jay Greenlinger, Director of Instructional Technology at Pleasant Valley School District. "From the quality of the product to the high standard of customer service, we are very pleased.  Rarely do we find vendors who are so willing to help when we have issues or questions.  Every step of the way, the OverDrive team has been helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly." Unsolicited feedback from the school district's digital library users include statements from parents, such as this one: "I also have to tell you that the digital library is amazing. My third grader is not the biggest reader, but now he's obsessed with doing it on his iPad. Great program." Additionally, Pleasant Valley teachers have tweeted about the OverDrive program:   OverDrive spoke with Greenlinger to find out more about Pleasant Valley School District's experience with their new eBook service. Since implementing your OverDrive eBook service, what has the experience been like for your staff, students and parents? We have had a very positive reception from staff, students and parents. In the two weeks since we opened our library to our District, we have had hundreds of students and staff checking out books, making requests for new books to be purchased, and – most importantly – reading eBooks. From the initial conversations with the sales team to the ongoing work we do with our account representative, every interaction with OverDrive has been positive. How have you gotten the word out about eBooks in your schools? We are using many forms of promotion. Our schools and teachers are placing information in their email newsletters.  The district has used its social media outlets to promote the site as well. We use our Facebook page and Twitter handle, along with our district website, which has an easy-to-find icon that links to our OverDrive collection. On February 18th, we will be welcoming the Digital Bookmobile to one of our campuses, which will also allow us to promote the OverDrive library in a hands-on way for parents and students. How did you train your staff to use OverDrive eBooks? As part of our Common Core trainings, we are holding grade level release days. We are training teachers on a number of digital tools, and OverDrive is one of the tools most appreciated by teachers.  In fact, we plan time into each of these days for teachers to explore the digital library, search for books they want to use in their classroom, and to make requests. What impact have you seen on student engagement with your school library? We have immediately seen an interest from students, and we receive feedback from students, teachers, and parents that convince us this was a great decision.   If you'd like to learn more about best practices for implementing, promoting and maintaining your school digital library collection, keep up with the OverDrive School blog, or get great title list suggestions from our Collection Development blog. Check out our Partner Portal for an abundance of marketing materials, service enhancements and information from our Learning Center.   Heather Tunstall is the Public Relations Specialist at OverDrive.

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