Documenting our Journey with eBooks
On October 12, 2011 I attended a virtual summit on ebooks sponsored by School Library Journal. Follow this link to the Summit website.
Sessions
Session 1: Keynote Panel Ebooks: The New Normal – How libraries are leveraging the ebook opportunity.
Session 2: Panel: From Building Level to Regional Level: Ebook Models for K-12
How to implement ebooks in schools is the hottest topic among school librarians this fall. In this session, panelists who’ve created successful ebook programs—from a single school to a 64-library district— described how they did it, from choosing a reading device and acquiring funds to handling licensing, metadata, and distribution.
Session 3: Panel: Navigating the Road Ahead: A Guided Discussion of Ebooks in K – 12 Libraries
The panel addressed the current state of ebooks on the K12 scene by discussing the following questions: Will devices cease to matter as econtent becomes platform-agnostic? If the K12 market could dream the next chapters, how will the plot unfold? What would our dream ebooks look like/contain? What role will ebooks and etexts play in curriculum? Will they be affordable, sharable, curatable, scalable, and in what ways will they impact the reading habits of learners?
Session 4: Interview: The End of the Story: The Future of Fiction in an Electronic Age
Interview with award winning author and educator M. T Anderson, who talked about the impact of ebooks on the publishing industry and what it means for authors.
Session 5: Pecha Kucha (5:00-6:00 PM) The Summit closed with a diverting Pecha Kucha “Happy Hour” event featuring authors and illustrators whose work have made the digital shift. Pecha Kucha (pronounced “pa-chok-cha“) is a fast-paced format created by Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, two Tokyo-based architects. Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chatter”) applies a simple set of rules. A Pecha Kucha must be exactly 20 slides and each slide is displayed for no more than 20 seconds. Some say it’s the new digital performance art, some call it the anti-PPT, but most simply pronounce it fun.