ePlatform Brings eBooks, Audiobooks & Decodable Readers to Students Wherever They Are

Staff like the grammar options that identify parts of speech. The collection is extensive but we also use the shop to buy requested items that students have added to their wish lists and these are supplied very quickly. The single sign on feature is very welcome and students pick up how to use ePlatform really speedily. From a librarian's point of view, there is no cataloguing, processing or repairing, the books get automatically returned so there are no overdues or lost books. A list of new titles is emailed periodically and the settings can be changed to stop certain age groups accessing material designed for older readers. Accessit works in tandem with ePlatform, so all titles a school has access to are on one catalogue. I thoroughly recommend ePlatform!

This has enabled students who are struggling with print copies of class sets to keep up with the class reading requirements.  Even if we can't provide an Audio copy, we have the advantage of the text to speak option with all of the eBooks. This has opened up access for many students. We added the Wellness Collection last year. Our Guidance Department paid for this. We felt that this was a great way for student to access important material with complete anonymity. Our plan is to approach our International Department and Language Departments to promote the use of bilingual text using the new tools. We are excited to have 150+ languages available without spending time and space trying to develop a collection focussed around this. 

There is a good selection of books, it's free and the loan duration is a good length of time. We launched it through the school website to parents and initially trialled it within English lessons but then went to whole year groups when it was introduced with the Literary Canon reading time every day. We have found it is good for EAL students as we can often find translated texts and also for visually impaired students as you can change the font size or use an audible option. We found out about ePlatform through the trust's links with the Blackpool Literacy project and the English trust link Estelle Bellamy. We would recommend it highly to other schools who wish to promote independent reading at secondary level as it merges the world of technology.

The amount of loans on the ebooks and audio books for last month was amazing. Thank you so much for providing such an amazing service. I promoted through emails to students and staff and also by just having power points running in the library showcasing how to use the platform and what they can use it for. In the run up to the holidays I have been putting information on our daily notices also. Anytime a student asks for a book and we do not have it, ePlatform is the first place I look to see if it is available through it. The teachers are also promoting it in class, with students having the option of using ePlatform for silent reading (10 to 15 minutes a day).

The eBook platform is the part of our library services that remains open and available to our students 24/7. That means we can provide quality reading materials during school holiday breaks, lockdowns, or while sick at home. We launched our ePlatform two weeks before the country went into its first lockdown. A lot of communication was done by email notices and flyers to let parents at home know how to access the eBooks. Our students totally engaged with it – and our loans went through the ceiling. Once or twice a year I promote the platform to classes visiting the library. I remind them how to access the platform and show them some of the latest appealing titles. I do this on a large display screen and play snippets of audiobooks so that they can hear the quality and the effects (music and accents etc).

We have been enthusiastic users of the Wheelers ePlatform Digital Library since 2017. In our annual library budget, I make provision for two annual eBook subscriptions and one audiobook subscription, as well as for monthly new releases for our Private Collection. The reason for taking out a second eBook subscription in 2020, was that we were regularly exceeding our 250 loans per month on the Shared Collection…a good problem to have! The second subscription has allowed us to meet the students’ demand for eBook titles without them having to wait until the end of the month when the loan limit resets. This has been warmly welcomed by our students and their teachers.