50 popular titles for students include “National Geographic Kids,” “TIME for Kids,” “The Week Junior” and more

 

 

CLEVELAND – October 13, 2021 – In response to educators’ need for more digital content to support classroom learning, OverDrive Education now offers popular digital magazines to schools around the world via the Sora student reading app. Schools can purchase an affordable bundle of 50 always-available educational and recreational magazines for all students who use Sora. Sora is the student reading app available in more than 50,000 schools worldwide.

An award-winning app known for ebooks and audiobooks, Sora unifies a simple user experience for students, including easy issue selection and single article view. Educators can now purchase the curated collection of the most popular titles for schools includes National Geographic Kids, TIME for Kids, The Week Junior and more. Schools can choose Juvenile, Young Adult and Adult packages and remove any titles from their collection as needed. More information about the magazine titles can be found here (title availability may vary by region).

“We’re so excited to offer a range of periodicals across the grade levels,” said Susan Nakasone, Librarian at Ewa Beach Elementary in Hawaii. “Adding these to our shared collection will provide greater accessibility and choice in reading material to all our students. Our students’ nonfiction informational reading engagement just got a huge boost!”

Magazines in Sora solve many challenges schools face with other digital magazine subscription models. Specifically, the bundle saves time for librarians because there is no need to select individual titles or manage expirations or physical copies. The all-in, bundled price (based on enrollment) helps make purchasing magazines more cost-effective than purchasing on a per-title basis. The Simultaneous-Use rights of the collection allow all students in a school to access the titles at the same time. Finally, students can use one app to access magazines alongside their school’s collection of ebooks and audiobooks, consolidating reading in a streamlined user experience. Additional features distinguish magazines in Sora from other services:

  • New issues of titles will automatically appear in the school’s individual collection as they become available (title availability may vary by region).
  • Back issues up to rolling two years for most titles.
  • Reflowable text: text and supplementary images for articles are provided as HTML elements.
  • Magazines don’t count toward student checkout limits, but they do count towards the school library’s overall circulation of content.
  • Usage data is available to authorized educators in a secure student reading dashboard.

“The school librarians we work with have very limited budgets for magazines, which means most schools can only afford a handful of digital subscriptions or a couple dozen print titles. At our pricing tiers, this is a strong value for school libraries,” said Angela Arnold, General Manager of OverDrive Education. “Plus, the usability of magazines in Sora is unrivaled. Students can read magazine articles in Sora as scrollable text instead of pinching and zooming. This makes reading magazines on a phone a delightful prospect for students.”

Learn more about these digital magazines and Sora. Product use images can be found here.

 

 

About OverDrive Education and the Sora student reading app

OverDrive Education, a division of OverDrive, offers the industry’s largest catalog of ebooks and audiobooks for over 50,000 K-12 schools and millions of students worldwide. The company’s student reading app, Sora, provides every student with access to the right books. Supporting the need to read required curriculum titles, class sets and pleasure reading digital books, Sora’s powerful learning tools and insights help meet the needs of students and educators. Sora was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2019. Founded in 1986, OverDrive – the leading digital reading platform for libraries – and OverDrive Education are based in Cleveland, Ohio USA. www.overdrive.com/schools

 

David Burleigh
Director of Brand & Communications
dburleigh@overdrive.com

###