Activity 22 and 23: Audiobooks and Downloadable Material

Audiobooks have had such a huge impact on the print book industry already, as a Teacher Librarian, I am torn about this. I realise my role in regards to books will be changing and I have to start thinking about how we can implement ebooks into the curriculum and the library. One of the major problems we have with the implementation of audio and ebooks is the software needed to run them. Quite a few schools have purchased iPads and iPods to help with this. My school has just purchased 2 iPads and 1 iPod for classroom use. However, "print" books will still have a big place in our school library for quite a while as the students do not have equitable access to the software to download the books. I Personally, I love curling up with a book rather than read books downloaded on my laptop, my husband on the other hand will take his iPad to bed with the latest book he's downloaded.

I can see the benefits of being able to download books;it takes up less space; you can take your library anywhere with you; you can download a new book straight away, rather than waiting to go to the bookshop. The negatives of downloading books has already begun - the closure of bookshops - this breaks my heart as I love nothing more than browsing through the books and finiding "the little gem" that you never knew existed.

Audiobooks and ebooks could be used by anyone who has access to the equipment. I have friends who load up their Kindle or iPads with books to take with them when they're travelling. My husband downloads audiobooks to listen to when he's driving to work.

I can see great potential for the use of audiobooks and ebooks in the classroom, it would be handy in reading groups or even in the library at lunchtime - download a book for the students to either listen to or read.