By: Christina Samek, Marketing Specialist.

Last year around this time, we told you all the ways digital is a gift. We provided helpful and trusted statistics and while those are still valid and important, we wanted to take the time to share personal testimonies. Because after all, it’s the season of giving. The gift matters, yes, but who doesn’t love hearing how the gift made the receiver feel? We live for the smiles underneath all the wrapping paper. We live for the moments OverDrive makes life a little better for you, your teachers, and your students.

The magic of multilingual Read-Alongs

For Alysa Haack, a teacher at Lincoln Public Schools, OverDrive gave a student a moment of familiarity and connection while reading a Read-Along in English and Arabic. “You should have seen him, jumping up and running to the screen as the Arabic narration started,” notes Haack. “It’s really cool when we see first hand how a book can make a difference.”

Haack sums up that feeling, one we’ve felt quite a bit, perfectly: “It took my breath away!”

Mixed media promotion

Sarah Daudney, Library Multimedia Specialist, and Russ Tomlin, Librarian, at San Leandro USD realized they had something great before they even launched their OverDrive service. They went above and beyond in their promotion to make sure their students were well aware of their brand new, exciting eBook collection. They created an impressive eBook wall (photo below) no one would miss. “Sarah and I made 4” x 4″ squares that captured the titles of each e-book we ordered, then had our student helpers mount them on card stock to create tiles that fit over the wall tiles,” said Tomlin.

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In addition to the wall, they also created bookmarks using images from the wall itself. “We will hand the bookmarks out to each student when they check out a physical book from our library. With 10 different ones, they are collectible,” notes Daudney. The gift of digital and a collectible? Sounds like our kind of promotion!

No more forgotten homework

For Michelle Sherwin at Ottawa Catholic School Board, OverDrive was both a gift…and perhaps a curse depending on who you ask. She gave a lesson on OverDrive to staff and as it turned out, the lesson paid off:

“The next day, [a] teacher told me that when she went home, she asked her son to get out his French reading homework. He said that he “forgot” it at school. She told him, “no problem”. To his dismay, she showed him how to log into Overdrive and had him select a French novel to read. Voila! French homework complete.”

OverDrive October leads to record circulations

Lastly, take it from Elizabeth Rush at Northside ISD, who recently completed a very successful “OverDrive October” where she challenged here campuses to hit record circulations. And boy, did they deliver! Northside exceeded their circulation goal by 5,000+ checkouts. “Our librarians and students and parents truly believe in the product. 24/7/365 access to books is amazing,” exclaims Rush.

“As the administrator of the OverDrive collection, I love providing the eBooks that our students and teachers request, and it is very satisfying to know that these books are available to all of our students both at school and at home,” continues Rush.

Give the gift of OverDrive today. Ask us how to get started.

Happy Holidays to all the readers out there!