Project update

  • A chaos of Kindles and a new player in town

    Autumn term, and another term of schools still using eBooks primarily as a means to provide yet another tick on the checklist of a pushy parent, marking off the facilities […]

  • Where the blog have you been?

    It’s been quite a while since my last post for a number of (good) reasons. I’ve been very busy at work what with a total move of the library across […]

  • !

    Just got a surprise email returning from holiday telling me that 8 out of the 10 iPod touches on loan to a school for the pilot just became victims of […]

  • When I was a lad…

    …hand-me-down meant an Action Man with only one working ‘gripping hand’ and an ‘eagle eye’ that looked the wrong way, or a worn jumper that was a refugee from a […]

  • Over the bridge and far away

    Ah, the Dartford crossing in the grip of autumn fog after a day out at the Essex Schools Library services. It was (I hope, as I haven’t seen the feedback […]

  • eBook provision for schools

    22nd March 2012 Tower Hamlets Schools Library Services, PDC, English St. Interest from schools is rapidly increasing in eBooks, not least because of increased marketing. Microlibrarian Systems will be present […]

  • 60 years to go…

    Upon resetting the iPods prior to lending them to the next school I discovered that one wannabe hacker had made 21 attempts to guess the PIN to disable the restrictions […]

  • Making a pact with the devil

    This one’s a late evening rant. You have been warned. Because it doesn’t matter how many morons who think that librarians are too stuffy to design a library are recruited at huge […]

  • Taking things for granted

    Sometimes you take the simplest things for granted. Like being able to quickly navigate and move items between file systems. To understand the hierarchy of files and folders. To understand […]

  • eBook D.I.Y

    Well, the library has decided to trust me to run a workshop on building a working .epub eBook. The first workshop is Wednesday 28th September and is a 3.5 hour […]

  • Evolution evolving

    It’s been over two years now since I started this whole project and it’s been fascinating watching the development of the eBook medium. The latest phase of the evolution is the ability to […]

  • All pupils are equal…

    I’m desperate to find a school that will let it’s reluctant readers, it’s pupils who refuse to approach books, have a proper shot at reading in a novel way that […]

  • This is more like it (project update)

    One of our primary schools is the latest school to take part in my pilot and represents an interesting development in the project – in that it is no longer […]

  • Minimum required specifications

    So, are eBooks and schools compatible? I’ve been running through scenarios of how school libraries could adopt digital texts and have whittled them down to two common choices: 1. “I’ve […]

  • Controling interests (project update)

    My project has reached its fourth school, or rather it has returned to its second school. It is telling how much an invoice for a new iPod (even discounted) can […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: It’s not all doom and gloom

    It’s not all doom and gloom

    Perhaps it was the lack of sunlight last winter, coupled with the general feeling of hopelessness when confronted with the actions of the Coalition, but it has been pointed out […]

  • Reader’s block

    In a fit of facetiousness in a recent presentation on my eBook project I decided to come clean about the pros and cons of ebooks. Yes they may make some […]

  • One down?

    It was innevitable, and I’m surprised they all made it this far, but plucky iPod number 5 has gone missing in action. Presumably another pupil will be thinking that Christmas […]

  • eBooks project summary

    "Do you work for Apple?" was the rather intuitive question that I was asked by my first group of guinea pigs. If I'd been bag searched at Mile End tube it would look as though I'd just mugged Steve Jobs.