For this survey I am using LibGuides. On the Books tab of the Schenk Portal there is a survey about what aspects of our collection we should emphasize. These decisions get trickier every year with less money in the fund along with demands from electronic formats such as databases and eBooks.
The emphasis of our Scholastic Book Fair money was on the 500 - Science section of our library. With this money I attempted to balance easier non-fiction texts with more complex text. Even with this emphasis there are still gaps in this part of our collection. Continued emphasis on this section continues to make sense in light of its utilization for research topics, especially in K-3.
One noticeable trend, especially in non-fiction, is books only being offered as an eBook or only offering a hard cover and eBook version with no paperback option. A scenario I encountered several times was a $30 hard cover text or an unlimited eBook version for a few dollars more. A book that could be used by 1 student or teacher at time or an eBook that could be used by multiple students / teachers at a time. In these scenarios its very difficult not to err on the side of the eBook.
I am fully aware of eBooks being out of many teachers comfort zone but Times are a Changing if we want them to or not. Ebooks purchased are accessible on all the devices we use at Schenk as well as remote access from home. You can access all our current eBooks on the Tech In Ebook page. You could have all your students on netbooks or iPads sharing the same text or display it through the projector. Teachers and students can access all the eBooks through the same familiar Library Catalog interface as traditional books.
So on to the survey. http://madison.campusguides.com/books-schenk
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