By: Christina Samek, OverDrive Marketing Specialist

February brings a strange tradition here in America. We watch, with baited breath, to see if a cute little groundhog will see it’s shadow and doom us with 6 more weeks of winter. I’ve spent my whole life in Ohio, and even if Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t see his shadow, I’m wearing my parka until April. This tradition, not even remotely rooted in science, inspired the film Groundhog Day in which a bumbling Bill Murray is forced to relive the same day, Groundhog’s Day in fact, over and over again. As an educator or administrator pursuing a digital reading platform, you may feel like Bill in that you have to do the same thing over and over again. Shared Collections offer variety and access you’ve never had before.

OverDrive always has something new

Our Education platform offers you an opportunity to grow your collection year after year, no loopholes. You aren’t paying for the same tired content, you add more as you go. With OverDrive Education’s Shared Collections you add more as a group of schools, where in short, there’s even more to love.

A shared collection enables schools or districts to have access to more digital titles than any one individual institution could purchase on their own. For example, if your school were to initiate a digital collection of their own, they may be able to afford 50 titles. However, by joining a collection shared by multiple schools or districts, your school would have access to 1,000 titles. Your shared collection grows as more schools or districts join.

It gives you an opportunity to ensure your students are seeing new content year after year, as more schools and districts add to the collection. In ensures varying interests are satisfied. For example, if School A is purchasing only curriculum content and School B is purchasing only sustained silent reading content, students from Schools A and B reap the benefits of both!

Shared Collection successes

shared ebook collectionYou don’t have to stress on the getting started process, we make launching a shared collection easy, efficient, and fit to your schedule. Just ask the Independent School Library Director’s Association (ISLDA), currently launching a shared collection. They explored digital learning platforms with Gales, Follett, and Mackin Via but ultimately decided OverDrive was the best fit for their group’s needs.

Lucy Foley, Media Specialist at Visitation School, notes “Our Upper School students participate in a 1:1 laptop program, and the resources and access they will gain through OverDrive will help them be prepared for classwork and also give them opportunities to develop an appreciation for literature to carry with them into the future.” She is excited to partner with her community of independent schools and OverDrive to offer another avenue of learning.

Her colleague, Bonnie Morris, Librarian, agrees “I have very much wanted to bring eBooks to my patrons but, have felt intimidated with the formats, keeping track of subscriptions and the costs involved.” OverDrive “presents a cutting-edge opportunity to try new technology in my library and see how it will impact my library patrons without a huge risk. By sharing with my colleagues, we can work together to help our students.”

Expert content curation

Helping your students is our ultimate goal. At contract signing, you receive a dedicated OverDrive team, who essentially take on the grunt work so you don’t have to. Take it from Bailey Hotujac, OverDrive Content Specialist, who is currently helping ISLDA toward their launch. “We have a team of school librarians who manage the shared collection content to ensure that it stays fresh and relevant, while meeting the needs of all of the member schools. We take all of the work out of managing a shared collection so each school can focus on promoting the service and getting students reading.”

A Shared Collection is a solution for anyone exploring a digital learning platform, for anyone who has thought about OverDrive but never took the plunge, for anyone, any school, period. We are excited to see how ISLDA’s students will benefit when their OverDrive collection launches in a few weeks. Foley noted one of the reasons OverDrive worked for her was because of what OverDrive could do for her students in the long run. She adds “As our school motto states, we educate students “not for school, but for life.”’ We like that idea.

If you are interested in a Shared Collection, contact us today.

Tune in next month as we share testimonials from our veteran Shared Collections schools on what they’ve learned and how they’ve benefited.