Tag: Eaudiobooks

BorrowBox Stats Through the Roof!

Staff and pupils in Falkirk Council have had automatic access to 1000s of eBooks and eAudiobooks through their Glow account since 2018. We provide this service for every school for free and as pupils/staff already have a Glow log-in there are no barriers to joining the library, just download the app and read or listen. It complements our physical collections and we wanted pupils to have access to a wide-range of audiobooks (CDs were on the way out!). Reading books on a device also offers lots of accessibility options like font-size, spacing, dictionary, colour of background etc. and can be used with Immersive Reader.

We started with a small collection and built it up over the years – new content gets added every month and we regularly give the collections an extra boost. The library has always been well-used but lockdowns and the roll-out of Falkirk Connected iPads has seen our numbers of active users and loans soar! Originally content was only for early years and primary, as that is who we provide our service to, but when lockdown struck we started to add teenage content to support our high schools.

From April 2021 to March 2022 we loaned:

17256 Eaudiobooks

23161 Ebooks

It’s makes our librarian hearts sing to see so many children using the service we provide and reading all these books. However, it’s not without challenges, we can have long waiting lists for popular books no matter how many copies we buy. We also need to keep building our teenage content as the service is quickly growing in popularity with older pupils.

Borrowbox

 

Falkirk Council’s Learning Resource Service has added e-books and unabridged e-audio books to the resources available to borrow for pupils and school staff. This is a brilliant way to develop and maintain a love of reading especially in the current situation where schools and public libraries are closed.

We have invested in a number of campaign titles allowing simultaneous access to certain titles e.g. Holes, The Wizards of Once and The Boy Who Grew Dragons.

Also, BorrowBox has been working with J.K. Rowling and Pottermore to support the #HarryPotterAtHome initiative and we are offering unlimited loans to the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone until 30th April 2020.

There are two main ways to log in:

  1. Through an app (available for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire,)
    1. Download the BorrowBox app by Bolinda from your device’s app store
    2. Open the app, in the Library section tap and type “Falkirk Learning Resource Service” Tap on the selection.
    3. In the ID/Barcode section, enter your Glow account username
    4. In the PIN/Password box, enter your Glow password
  2. Through a browser
    1. Log into Glow at https://glow.rmunify.com with your Glow username and password
    2. Navigate to the green Bolinda BorrowBox tile
    3. Click on the tile and it will load the library
    4. If there isn’t a tile, click up in App Library at the top of the screen. Search for Bolinda Borrowbox, click on it and Add to My Launchpad. Click back on Launchpad at the top of the screen to return to the main Glow page.

Have a look at the really helpful videos available here to show how to sign in and borrow books.