The Kids are Waiting | Series Made Simple Fall 2010

These days the library community is abuzz about ebooks. How they're starting to outsell print titles on Amazon; how they will save or ruin reading, depending on whom you listen to; and, of course, who's selling them. In our recent online summit, "Ebooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point" (available on www.slj.com under the "Technology" drop-down menu), Warren Buckleitner of the New York Times described children's ebooks as occupying "a messy continuum between less and more interactive," and impressed upon the audience that technology enhancements don't necessarily add up to interactivity. Paraphrasing Einstein, he explained that the value of an ebook can be determined using the formula e=sf2, where e is the engagement of the child, s is the story's match with that child, and f is what he termed the ebook's "frosting"—extras that come with the electronic version that aren't available, or even possible, in paper titles. When it comes to the electronic versions of series nonfiction, we're still mostly waiting for the frosting. But since your patrons are clamoring to use ebooks, and you're trying to provide more access with less money, starting in this edition of Series Made Simple we will list the e-isbns and prices for series that are available digitally. Where the e-version provides features that are not available in the print, those features are described and evaluated by our librarian contributors. Wondering how it will all work out in your library? On our back page, Douglas Uhlmann of Philadelphia's William Penn Charter School describes his experiences over the past few years, during which his library went from owning only a handful of ebooks to test-driving iPads and making ebook-related changes to its OPAC. As Uhlmann notes, there are no fast or easy solutions to the sea of formats and readers, but I hope that with his guidance you'll be ready to jump in. Series Made Simple continues to provide the content you have come to expect from us: reviews of new nonfiction series, grouped by subject, with "Bottom Line" recommendations clearly spelled out. As usual, we cover series on curriculum mainstays such as American history, biography, and science, but this time we've also thrown a few vampire and other occult books into the mix—see Jennifer Prince's "Fanged and Furry" article on page 55—as well as titles on toothy creatures of a different kind, in John Peters's "Killer Beasts" on page 22. See you in the spring, when I hope to gush about the great new interactive ebooks that have burst onto the series nonfiction scene!

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