As we add more and more eBooks and other eResources into our libraries, classrooms and schools, we need engaging, meaningful and easy ways to promote these resources with our students, teachers and families throughout the community. Especially with summer right around the corner, being able to promote the resources that can support reading throughout the summer will make a big impact on your readers all summer long.
There are several things that I did in our library and classrooms that lead to circulation, use and a whole lot of success. It took a little creativity and extra time, but it was so fun finding and developing ways to get these into the hands of the students, teachers and families.
I also gathered lots of ideas from other teacher librarians and educators....and of course our friends at Follett have created awesome tools and materials to help us too.
Let's look at....10 Easy Ways To Promote eBooks and eResources within Destiny from your library, classroom and school community!
1. First Tip…. You must promote your eBooks and eResources in a big way in order for your students and teachers to know these resources are part of your library collection and ready to use.
When we started adding eBooks to our collection within Destiny, we had a school wide celebration with all of our students in kindergarten through 12th grade, teachers, the public librarian, families and we even invited the community.
I created posters and cards with the Destiny information.
We handed the cards out to everyone and hung the posters up in the library, classrooms and throughout the school. I put a QR code on them so they could scan it to get to the eBooks and eResources easily anywhere, anytime.
It was fun to watch a lot of the students tape the cards to their laptops and put them into their billfold or backpack in a safe place.
We made these cards available not only on this special day, but throughout the year at Back-to-School Night, student conferences, PD days and they were always available in the library and office.
2. As part of the celebration, I created a Destiny Read Box outside of our library.
It was filled with eBook covers and screenshots of different databases such as PebbleGo, Tales-To-Go and PebbleGo Next, all found within our online library in Destiny.
When they scanned the pictures, book talk videos and trailers would pop up that the students, classroom teachers and I added with an augmented reality tool.
Metaverse is a new augmented reality tool that would be fun to use with a Read Box project. You will find Metaverse here.
3. Did you know that within every resource within Destiny, there are two easy ways to share it with your patrons?
You will see the Share button (it is circled in green above),
This will allow you to easily add the QR code or link to promotional posters, bookmarks, cards, Google Classroom, emails, newsletters and more.
4. In Destiny, you can create rich Collections by Destiny that can contain any of the eBooks, databases, links to websites and online resources, audiobooks and videos that you have within your library.
This is an easy and meaningful way to share resources with your students and others. It is also a helpful way to strike up collaborative conversations and opportunities between teachers as you collaborate on building Collections together.
One of my favorite things to do within Collections is to create them focusing on different times of the year. The one above is the Libraries and Reading Rocks All Summer Long Collection I created a few weeks ago. You will find it here.
We focused our summer reading programs around not only the print resources we had in our library, but on the eBooks and eResources we had in our collection too. The students and families really enjoyed this because they had unlimited, 24/7 simultaneous access to all of the digital resources.
5. Students will love creating their very own Collection of digital resources too! This is an awesome way to give your students a voice in promoting eBooks and eResources within Destiny too.
This gives them a very personal connection to the eBooks and eResouces by creating Collections for school work, reading and even things they are passionate about.
You can create a place in your library or classroom to share and celebrate Student Collections of the Week! By creating a simple poster, adding an image of a student Collection and a quick description wrote by the students, you will be able to not only celebrate student work, but promote the eBooks and eResources they are sharing within the Collections they have created.
What a fantastic way to celebrate your students and the resources they love!
You can even do this with the Collections teachers create too….Teacher Collections of the Week would be a helpful way for others to see and use all of the awesome Collections others are putting together.
Quick tip….Don’t forget to add a short URL or QR code to the poster so students and others can get to the Student Collections of the Week quick and easy.
6. Did you know that students can write reviews within Destiny on the eBooks and eResources they are reading and using? They can even add a link to a book project they created using a digital tool or app such as StoryboardThat or Buncee.
This is a not only a way to get your students to write about what they are reading for school work, but it gives them a place to share their interests and passions for things they personally love to read (or maybe don’t love) too.
This activity can also be used in talking to your students about digital citizenship and being part of an online community. They will take pride in their voice and the way they promote the eBooks and eResources for the library and throughout the school.
I wrote about how to add video reviews and digital book projects within Destiny here.
7. Students can use Biblionasium within Destiny, which they love. Being connected to this amazing online reading community allows students to not only write reviews, but to keep track on digital book shelves of what they are reading, what they have read and what they want to read; set up reading challenges for themselves; recommend books to others; and more!
Hagan actually used Biblionasium one summer to keep track of all of the state eBooks he was reading within Destiny. He loved creating his very own challenge and gaining badges as he went.
8. You can connect your eBooks to print books within the library collection. This will promote both of these resources. I created QR codes that I added to the front of the books which also had an eBook copy.
With the QR codes available for each eBook and eResource within Destiny, you can quickly print these off and add them to your books.
You can also add the QR codes to things like shelf markers, table tents and signage within your library. It makes the eBooks and eResources super accessible to patrons and connected to your print collection even more.
9. You can add signage to the different area of your library to promote ebooks and eResources that go with that genre or area.
I love how my friend and elementary librarian Elaine Deja used Buncee to create posters for the different genres in her library. By simply adding a QR code, like we did in the Buncee above, the students not only see what books they have within that genre on the shelf, they can also scan it to see what eBooks and eResources there are within that genre in Destiny too.
This is the post explaining how Elaine created the Buncee signage.
Here is a tip to get students involved in this type of promotion.
You can ask students to create posters with art supplies or using Buncee to retell one of the eBooks they loved. When they are finished, have them add these posters to the location where the eBook would be found on the shelf.
If they use Buncee, they can even add the link to that eBook from Destiny right into their Buncee.
When they are finished with their Buncee, have them add a QR code within Buncee and print it off. Now their classmates and others can scan their Buncee and get to that special eBook too!
10. Follett has created a whole suite of promotional tools. These are amazing!
Take a look at what they have created! There are two categories including Promotional Materials and Get Teachers Involved.
Promotional Materials include....
I really love the Using eBooks in the Classroom Lesson Plans. There are a variety of topics which can fill many needs while promoting eBooks and eResources in the classroom too.
This is also a terrific way for us, as teacher librarians, to find even more ways to collaborate with the classroom teachers within their classrooms and the library.
This is also a terrific way for us, as teacher librarians, to find even more ways to collaborate with the classroom teachers within their classrooms and the library.
To gather even more ideas on promoting eBooks and eResources in your library, I have created this Padlet that others have been adding their ideas to.
Just click here and it will take you to all of these ideas like...
I can't wait to see what people add next!
And I can't wait to hear how you get your students hooked on eBooks and eResources by promoting your digital collection too!
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