Tag Archives: ebooks

Are you coming to the Public Libraries satellite in Cape Town?

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Public library services around the world have reached the cross-roads. Collection formats and community needs continue to evolve at a rapid pace. Technology plays a major role providing people with access to information; bringing library staff out from behind the desk to engage with users and delivering programs and activities, to suit the local community.

  • How do Public Libraries cope with these changes?
  • How do we plan and adapt our spaces to incorporate these changes?
  • How do we reorganise our service models?

These are the questions we will explore through our exciting and very practical program at the Public Library Satellite 13-14 August as part of the IFLA Congress in Cape Town.

We will be adopting  a multi-pronged approach with a combination of keynote speakers, targeted papers and workshop sessions.

Our dynamic speakers bring perspectives and experiences from around the world including Australia, Denmark, Japan, South Africa, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.

The conference will be hosted by the City of Cape Town Library Service and the Western Cape Provincial Library Service in partnership with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section.

Delegates will have the opportunity to workshop solutions for service delivery options with their professional colleagues and to share and learn from others’ experiences.  Public library colleagues from around the world have already indicated their intention of attending and will bring with them a wealth of experience that will lead to stimulating discussions.

If you’re thinking of attending you’ll need to be quick, places are limited and registrations close on 30 June.

We look forward to meeting you in South Africa.

Children eReading

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The UK’s  National Literacy Trust has published a literature review summing up The Impact of eBooks on the Reading Motivation and Reading Skills of Children and Young People. In 2012, for the first time ever, the National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey reported that the number of children ‘reading on screen outside school outnumbered those reading in print’. This paper explores what such a dramatic shift in reading patterns means for young people’s literacy levels, by systematically reviewing the current thinking on the subject. The review addresses the negative concerns that screen reading detrimentally effects comprehension and recall, as well as the positive claims that eReading motivates typically reluctant readers  (such as boys or those from less advantaged backgrounds).

The paper pools together an intriguing and useful collection of easy to understand statistics on the matter, for example:
– Scholastic US research found that of children who had read an eBook, 26% of boys and 16% of girls said they were reading more books as a result.

  •  A 2012 study of 36 struggling readers at KS3 found ‘substantial gains in both accuracy and comprehension’ following an intervention involving both print and enhanced eBooks.
  • A 2013 study of 103 US high school students with dyslexia found that students offered texts on an iPod touch showed significantly improved reading speed and comprehension compared with reading on paper.