OverDrive Education’s Shared Collections help schools share resources to get students reading

ISTE Conference 2017, SAN ANTONIO – June 26, 2017 – Successful digital learning demands both flexibility and customization. OverDrive Education embraces both, with a custom-built reading platform that supports differentiated instruction, English Language Learning, Hi-Lo literacy instruction and blended learning. In the 2016-2017 school year, more than 2,500 K-12 schools joined over 15,000 OverDrive-powered schools to expand student growth through eBooks and audiobooks. Tens of millions of students now have access to digital books and programs through their schools to keep them reading and engaged.

For more information on the flexibility and customization OverDrive Education offers, visit booth 2926 at the ISTE Annual Conference in San Antonio, June 26-28.
This past school year, OverDrive launched a tool to help schools and districts maximize their budget. Shared Digital Collections, an efficient and flexible lending model that gets students reading digitally for about $1 per student is helping schools gain long-term success. Nearly a thousand schools in Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, California, Montana, Vermont, North Dakota, Hawaii and several provinces in Canada are seeing the benefit of sharing digital content and increasing reading engagement.

Teachers want digital books that will engage students and are easily accessible at any time and any place. The flexibility of using digital class sets for assignments is driving more reading in the classroom, specifically in ELA. In addition, more than 13,500 schools have partnered with the OverDrive Education Summer Read program. Thousands of students from OverDrive partner schools are enjoying free, 24/7 access to 12 juvenile and young adult eBooks over their summer break.

All of these programs, tools and resources paired with online and offline access and universal device compatibility means that students have what they need to keep reading all 12 months of the year.

A comprehensive content library helps, too. Faye Hagerty, Director of Library Services at North East ISD has been using OverDrive for 5 years. “It is hard to provide everything students could want in one print collection. But online collections allow us to provide far more options.” Digital access and increased variety have impacted reading rates at North East ISD. “Our goal in our first year was to have a 100 percent increase in usage of our OverDrive digital collection from the previous year, and we actually increased usage by 200 percent in one year,” said Hagerty.

Visit OverDrive Education at ISTE Booth #2926 for digital success stories, sharing resources and a demo of a new reading app designed specifically for schools.

For more information about the OverDrive service for schools, visit overdrive.com/schools.

About OverDrive Education – a division of OverDrive
OverDrive is the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools worldwide.  We are dedicated to “a world enlightened by reading” by delivering the industry’s largest catalog of eBooks, audiobooks and other digital media to a growing network of 36,000 libraries and schools in 63 countries.  Founded in 1986, OverDrive is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA and owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten.  www.overdrive.com

Contact:
Hadie Bartholomew
Communications Manager
hbartholomew@overdrive.com

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