This is a guest post from Mary Shaddrick, Media Specialist at North Jr. High in St. Cloud, MN. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program or fill out one of our applications. This program is only available during the FY21 school year.

I was very happy to be notified my minigrant application was approved for North Junior High’s media center. The money has already helped students and staff at our school. We all are very grateful to CMLE for the chance to increase our reading opportunities.

My plan for the grant was to increase the number of eBooks available to students. Last spring, companies opened up their eBook collection to schools at no cost for many titles.  This fall, we saw a lot of the titles disappear, but the need for eBook options for students did not go away.  I started the school year by using my budget to purchase almost 100 eBooks.  However, I knew we could use at least that many more to attract students to the eBook platform and provide a variety of genres and formats. 

When I read about the CMLE Extended Minigrant program, I immediately put in an application for the purpose of adding more eBooks.  Once I knew we were approved for the funding, I set to work choosing the eBooks.  The company I use for eBooks is Mackin, and they offer a service to determine which titles would be a good fit for your collection.  The suggestions are based on criteria you choose and on your current collection.

Once I had the list from Mackin, I started making edits.  Being new to the school, I relied on checkout records and what print books I saw were in demand. I was able to choose 89 titles, and I was only 52 cents off from the grant total.  I think most media specialists are fabulous at stretching budget dollars to the max, and I wanted to get as many titles as possible while keeping the needs and wants of our student users in mind. I also added some books we have in the collection as print books as they are high demand books and having the addition of an eBook version assures more students can read the book they really want. 

The next step was to publicize the new eBooks. At the time, all students were in the distance learning model.  I put together a slide show, videos, and marketed the new eBooks on Schoology.  Immediately, I saw an increase in students accessing Mackinvia.com (Mackin’s ebook platform). Students have their own login and password for the ebooks site, and I am able to track how many read books online and how many checkout a book or place a hold on a eBook. 

The additional titles we were able to purchase with this grant will have long-term benefits for our school. Even once we return to in-person instruction, I will continue to promote the eBooks and the ability to read on their 1-to-1 devices. Since we already had some eBooks on the platform, the students do not need to remember yet another login, and the site offers the ability to preview books that are not available for checkout due to another student currently using it. 

I recently started a program I am calling “Bookhub.” It is classroom delivery of print books during students’ LA classes. When I come into their classrooms, I also make sure to promote the reading they can do through Mackinvia and the books added this year with the grant money. Each week, I see one or two more students who previously had not checked out the eBook site beginning to use it.