Brain Hive Adds Publishers to K-12 E-Book Rental Collection -- THE Journal

Brain Hive Adds Publishers to K-12 E-Book Rental Collection

By Dian Schaffhauser
10/29/12

A company that makes e-books available to schools has just expanded its collection of titles. Brain Hive has added titles from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Annick Press, and August House. Launched in June 2012, Brain Hive allows a school or district to set up an on-demand e-book program for its students; the school is charged a dollar each time an e-book is checked out. The company said it has 3,000-plus books in its collection.

When a school or district sets up the service, a wizard-based process allows the librarian or instructor to:

Specify which e-book collections to provide access to for grades k-5, 6-8, or 9-12;
Set up book collections for special interests;
Set a monthly or annual budget to limit how much the school will pay during that period in e-book rental fees; and
Set a limit to the number of e-books any individual is allowed to check out.

The company provides e-book reading software that can run on computers, netbooks, and tablets. The same software allows the reader to do book marking and note taking, rate books, share books with friends, and join online book clubs.

Districts that are Renaissance Learning customers can tap the service to access Accelerated Reader quizzes to do reading assessments.

The company said in a statement that it has 300 schools currently using the service. Customers have included Forestview Middle School in Brainerd, MN and Basin City Elementary School in Mesa, WA.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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