Haddonfield School, Library Partnership Opens World Of Reading

HADDONFIELD, NJ — Students in the Haddonfield Public School District now have greater access to ebooks and digital audiobooks thanks to a new partnership between the school district and the local library.

Through the Public Library CONNECT partnership, students have safe access to thousands of age-appropriate books in the classroom, at home or anywhere else at any time of the day.

OverDrive, the digital reading platform serving both the library and school, has helped facilitate this partnership through Sora, the new student reading app being used by the school district.

Students log into that app using their school credentials, and will be able to borrow from both the school’s collection of classroom and pleasure reading titles as well as from Haddonfield Public Library’s juvenile and young adult digital collection.

Sora supports teachers by offering education-specific tools like achievements, exportable notes, and reading progress that encourage individualized learning.

“The Haddonfield Public Library is so excited for Haddonfield's students that can access ebooks through Sora,” Haddonfield Public Library Director Eric Zino said. “Having too many steps to access something is often a barrier for an otherwise great product and with Sora, the schools have eliminated that barrier for the ebooks their students want to read and use, including the titles from the public library collection for this audience.”

“We are excited to be able to provide current, diverse, popular, content rich ebooks and audiobooks to every student and staff in the Haddonfield Public School District through our partnership with the Haddonfield Public Library and Sora,” Haddonfield Public School District Media Specialist Jessica Miller said. “Using their district Gmail accounts, students can sign on easily one time and have access to both the Haddonfield Public Schools' digital library as well as the Haddonfield Public Library's digital library collection. This partnership allows the students to instantly have access to thousands of the most popular books out today."

The Sora app was named one of Time’s Best Inventions 2019. It is available for Haddonfield Public Schools students to download through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and on Chromebooks that support the Google Play Store. It is also available for use in web browsers at https://soraapp.com on any computer.

Since the Haddonfield Public Library is a member of South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, the entire Haddonfield community can also borrow and read South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative’s complete ebook, audiobook and digital magazine collection.

With a valid library card and the award-winning Libby app, customers can enjoy thousands of ebooks, audiobooks and digital magazines including bestsellers and new releases.

Readers of all ages can select from virtually every subject ranging from mystery, romance, children’s, business and more. Libby can be used on any major device or computer, including Apple, Android, Chromebook and Kindle.

The Libby and Sora apps were built by OverDrive and OverDrive Education respectively.