Feeding Hungry Ears with Playaways
-- School Library Journal, 7/13/2008 8:56:00 PM
Thanks to a generous grant from Bank of America, Baxter County Library (AR) now has 30 new audio titles to offer its teens, all in the self-contained Playaway digital format. Kim Crow Sheaner, teen librarian, noted that while the library has always had audiobooks available for its teen patrons, the two ounce, pre-loaded Playaways were immediately popular with the “grab and go” generation.
“The very first day we put the Playaways on the shelf, all but five were checked out,” said Sheaner. “They wiped us clean.” Bank of America is a long time supporter of the Baxter County Library, and has traditionally focused on providing support for teen programming.
Because of the popularity of the new titles, Baxter County Library had to reconsider its circulation policy, and changed the regular two week checkout period to one week, and is currently restricting patrons to just one Playaway title a week. “We may change that back when the fervor has died down and we get more titles,” reports Sheaner, “but we wanted to make sure that all our patrons had a chance to experience the Playaways.” The Playaway is essentially a preloaded MP3 player with one title on it. Patrons can use their own headphones, or purchase a reusable set from the Library for $1.00. Playaways are available from all major library wholesalers and directly from Playaway, as well as from some publishers, such as Recorded Books.
Baxter County Library’s initial collection is mostly fiction, with many classics that support assigned reading. One young patron even told a local newspaper that listening to Romeo and Juliet has made it easier to understand Shakespeare. Eragon has been very popular along with movie tie-ins, like The Golden Compass and The Chronicles of Narnia. Sheaner anticipates adding even more Playaways to the both the teen and adult collections.
