A Lakes Area School District and Library have teamed up to help make ebooks and digital audiobooks more available.

More information is below from a release from the Hollister School District:

As educators seek more creative ways to support students’ learning, a key resource for schools is the local public library. Now, Taneyhills Library and Hollister R-V School District have formed an innovative new partnership to increase students’ access to ebooks and digital audiobooks by combining the library’s and school’s digital reading resources in one app. This Public Library CONNECT partnership is facilitated by OverDrive, the popular digital reading platform serving both the library and school.

The partnership provides safe access to thousands of age-appropriate titles for students’ use inside the classroom, at home and anywhere 24/7. Through Sora, the student reading app for Hollister R-V School District, students can now borrow from both the school’s collection of classroom and pleasure reading titles as well as from Taneyhills Library’s juvenile, young adult and adult digital collection. Sora will automatically filter content to only include age-appropriate titles depending on each student’s grade level.

Students can easily log into the library’s digital collection through Sora using their school credentials rather than requiring a separate library card. In addition, Sora supports teachers by offering education-specific tools like achievements, exportable notes, and reading progress that encourage individualized learning.

“Outreach to the community is a priority for Taneyhills Library,” said Marcia Schemper-Carlock, Library Director of Taneyhills Library. “This partnership benefits students and our library families by giving them expanded access to digital content at their convenience. Sharing resources is what libraries do. Sora and OverDrive empower schools and libraries with resources to equip our future leaders with life-long learning skills.”

Holly Neal, Hollister Elementary Techbrarian, added, "The easiest way to get kids to read is by having books and literature that they are interested in, that they actually want to read. By partnering with Sora through MOREnet and the Taneyhills Library, we will now be able to give our students access to a greater selection of literature than we could ever provide in the district on our own. We are so excited and grateful that our students (and teachers) now have access to thousands of digital magazines, ebooks, and audiobooks. Connecting with Taneyhills also allows our students an opportunity to develop a relationship with our community library and all they have to offer, because a library is so much more than just books." 

The Sora app was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions 2019 and is available for Hollister R-V School District students to download through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and on Chromebooks that support the Google Play Store. It is also available for use in web browsers at https://soraapp.com on any computer.

Since Taneyhills Library is a member of Missouri Libraries 2Go, the entire Taneyhills community can also borrow and read Missouri Libraries 2Go’s complete ebook, audiobook and digital magazine collection. With a valid library card from Taneyhills Library and the award-winning Libby app, customers can enjoy thousands of ebooks, audiobooks and digital magazines including bestsellers and new releases. Readers of all ages can select from virtually every subject ranging from mystery, romance, children’s, business and more. Libby can be used on any major device or computer, including Apple (R), Android™, Chromebook™ and Kindle(R) (U.S. only).

The Libby and Sora apps were built by OverDrive and OverDrive Education respectively. To learn more, visit www.overdrive.com/apps/libby/ and https://discoversora.com.  
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