In last week's discussion, we talked a lot about ipods and MP3 players and their potential for use in the school library. One issue we stumbled across (at least in group B) was the fact that if the LMC checks out MP3 players to students (with books loaded on them) there is nothing to prevent the student from also loading music onto the device and using it for listening to their favorite tunes rather than reading.
Yesterday when I was in at the high school library where I am doing my fieldwork I was talking to the librarian there and she mentioned "Playaway." With Playaway, you have to buy a separate device for each title (the downside) BUT the only thing that is or can be recorded on the player is that book (the upside). The cost is around $50 per title (rather steep, but not totally prohibitive).
In reading about the Playaway, I found that different people have very different takes on it. In this review, the reviewer is rather scathing and makes all of the people who would consider using the Playaway sound like technophobes. On the other hand, in this review, the reviewer seems like they might be on Playaway's payroll. Personally, I can see that it would not be very practical for an individual to buy a Playaway -- but it actually seems like a decent investment for a library.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I learned about playaways on the Follett (titlewave.com) website and so assumed they were specifically designed for libraries. I think they are a wonderful for libraries - the 1 book one device feature makes it possible for users to browse through the playaway collection looking at the cover image just like they would a book. A playaway title is a true holding for the library whereas downloaded books are impermanent. Perhaps downloading the books to an MP3 is not technologically challenging but I imagine labeling and then storing the player with the ever changing content might be challenging.
Personally I can't imagine buying one as an individual - cost prohibitive.
I enjoyed reading these reviews! The first seemed to address the younger technologically-enabled population while the latter sounded like it was geared toward senior citizens.
I think playaways would be a great addition to a library. Though I still wonder how the company manages to stay afloat with a cost of $50 a title. Yes, they are great for libraries, but that still seems like too much for a library budget to collect very many. I wonder.....
Post a Comment