Blog Post #2: Handheld Devices

A current issue at our high school is that we cannot afford to purchase a lot of books to be used in the classrooms. We have the same novels we’ve had for years and years. They’re old, big, bulky, and falling apart in many cases. They take up way too much space in storage rooms, classrooms, and on bookshelves. If I were the librarian at my high school and had $10,000.00 to spend on handheld devices, my first purchase would be for a class set of Ebook Readers for teachers to check out for their classes. A class set (30) at $200.00 each would cost roughly $6,000.00. These Ebook Readers could be used within the classrooms for reading classics and books of any length. These digital Ebook Readers would take the place of all of our big, bulky books that are currently in the classroom. Thousands of ebooks can be accessed and/or downloaded for free from various web sites, and since money (or the lack thereof) is a huge concern at our school, the Ebook Readers would provide a way to access new reading material without spending unnecessary money. The Ebook Readers would be stored in locked rolling cart cases in the library and numbered with library bar codes for organizational bookkeeping purposes. They would be available for check-out for teachers of any content area on an as-needed basis for use within their classrooms, and then they would be returned to the library for storage after use.

Our library currently has numerous table workstations, but there are only 3 desktop computers in the entire library to be used for research. We have nearly 700 students in our high school. There is a major need for devices that will allow for research. With my remaining $4,000.00 budgeted for handheld devices, I would purchase 8 PDAs at 500.00 each. By purchasing a set of 8 PDAs, students could facilitate their research. Since PDAs can do virtually anything a regular desktop can do, students would have access to the Internet, use regular computer software, listen to audio files, watch video files, and create or edit most any kind of document. This would be a perfect addition to our library, which is currently lacking in ways for students to access resources for their research. The PDAs would be stored in the library at all times, would be used in the library at the existing table workstations, and then returned to the librarian for storage after use.