Brain Hive Adds District Management Tools, More Publishers

Brain Hive, an on-demand e-book lending service for K-12 schools, has added new tools to help administrators manage e-book collections for their district's schools, as well as an expanded library with the addition of four new publishers, including Orca Book Publishers, Saddleback Educational Publishing, Rourke Educational Media, and Dawn Publications.

Brain Hive, which launched in June of last year, offers unlimited access to more than 3,700 fiction and nonfiction e-books, along with printable activities, teaching resources, and online Accelerated Reader quizzes from Renaissance Learning. The service operates under an "on-demand, buck-a-book" business model, where schools pay no membership fees, but instead pay $1.00 for each book signed out, so schools only pay for those books that students and teachers are actually reading. The Brain Hive service is accessible on any computer with an Internet connection, and students and teachers can read the e-books on a computer or iPad.

New district management features enable district account administrators to allocate and manage their Brain Hive budget across the district's schools, select preferred e-book collections, manage users, and establish student e-book access and checkout policies. Brain Hive will also provide data on a district's e-book usage and digital reading, so administrators can use this information to determine the service's value within the district.

Brain Hive's content library is continually updated as the company adds more publishers to its roster. The four new publishers join Random House Children's Books, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Open Road Integrated Media, Charlesbridge Publishing, Lee & Low Books, Lerner Publishing Group, Annick Press, August House, Andersen Press USA, Gecko Press, The Creative Company, The Kane Press, Red Chair Press, and Stoke Books in the Brain Hive library.

Further information about Brain Hive is available at brainhive.com.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

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