2015 is here. Whether your school is heading into the second half of or getting ready for a new school year, January and February are great times to promote the eBooks you have available to your students. In 2014 we saw more schools than ever come up with creative ways to build awareness of their eBook offerings, and here are some of the best ideas from the past year:

  • Grand Island Senior High School in Nebraska held a “Books and Bites” campaign where they held a bake sale and all proceeds went to their content budget. If you have titles that were purchased through donations or special funding, you can highlight them by creating and posting a curated collection via Marketplace.
  • Lemon Bay High School in Florida held a device raffle in conjunction with a survey for students, similar to  what Smithville Middle School (MO) did, which not only increased their usage, but also gave them valuable information on what their students want to read. We created a custom graphic for them, as well as for Thompson bluedevil_33School District R2-J in Colorado who did a summer reading raffle, to post on their site during the raffle period for increased visibility.
  • The Middle School of Plainville in Connecticut is conducting a Read Right Run program in which students must read 26 books, run 26 miles, and do 26 “right” deeds from October 1, 2014 – April 1, 2015. Their OverDrive-powered website plays a supporting role by giving students easy access to read eBooks that count toward the program at any time, any place.
  • San Dieguito Union High School District in California uses the Simple Login feature to give their students increased access to titles they need for research projects. With physical books or two-three week lending periods of digital titles, sometimes students can’t get the books they need. Creating curated collections specifically for the research projects and giving them one-hour checkouts during class ensures that books aren’t tied up for weeks at a time (and gets students familiar with the eBook program). For more information on Simple Login, contact your Account Specialist.
  • Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School in Australia decorated their Library Resource Center windows with pictures of book covers, complete with QR codes to give students easy access to borrow from their school’s digital collection.
  • The Gilbert School in Connecticut has been bringing their Reading Dog, Gummy Bear, into the classroom. The students love to borrow and read an eBook on their device with Gummy Bear on their lap, seemingly reading along.

Did you have any successful campaigns in 2014, or perhaps one that you’re getting ready to roll out? We’d love to hear about them and help in any way that we can. If you have any questions on marketing or promoting digital reading, you can always reach out to your Account Specialist. We also have many resources on the Partners Portal including the seasonal promo kits and program and event ideas like post-holiday training sessions (which would be perfect for right now!). We expect 2015 to be another banner year for our school partners, so let’s start it off well together!