Apologies for not getting this out in a timely fashion. The end of year brings holidays, celebration, and, apparently, missed deadlines!
Before getting to this month’s challenge, we want to thank everyone who participated in last month’s challenge.
Forty-five of you posted your responses in the comment section. Many of them offered great tips about resources to suggest and ways to add customer service value. If you haven’t already, we recommend a quick scan through the comments. We bet you’ll find something you didn’t know!
We also have our first lucky winner, drawn at random from all the responses. A hearty congratulations go to Amy J. from Shaler!
And now, on to this month’s challenge:
A mom calls the library because she is pre-loading apps onto the iPad she is giving her daughter for the holidays. She’s pleased about all of the free downloadable resources the library offers, but she was alarmed to see a lot of racy covers on the OverDrive site. She doesn’t want her eleven-year-old daughter to have to shift through all of that just to find age appropriate options. What options can you offer her?
Post your answer and/or eResource tips in the comments below and be entered to win a prize! (Comments are moderated, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t see your comment right away.)
You can respond to challenges any time you’d like, but if you want to be eligible for a prize your comment must be submitted by the end of the week that the challenge is posted (in this case, the deadline is Friday, Dec. 12).
In OverDrive, you have the option (in the My Account–>Settings section) to block the covers of books which are mature and/or adult from appearing. Another option is to set the maturity level to only show titles for specific ranges–i.e. Juvenile to Young Adult.
1. account -> settings -> maturity level. this will take out the racy stuff, as long is the customer is logged in to their overdrive account. alas, if they log out, it’s back to the bodice ripping free-for-all.
2. there’s also an overdrive for kids page at http://acla.lib.overdrive.com/AE8E716D-258C-4D69-AE86-B327D47FF0F8/10/45/en/default.htm. would be nice to have that listed under the ebook provider page (http://www.carnegielibrary.org/eCLP/ebooks/) so it’s easier to find, hint hint. i wouldn’t have found it on the kids page if i hadn’t known it was there.
Under “filters” select “age group” and filter by “children” AND “pre-teen.”
I would tell the patron about OverDrive for Kids and OverDrive for Teens, which both provide only age appropriate books. As far as I understand, you have to access these “reading rooms” through the library website, but the mother could bookmark these for her daughter for easy, direct access. As far as I know, there is not a separate OverDrive app for kids or teens, and I don’t know if it’s possible for parents to set it so that their children can only access the kid or teen reading rooms, but users can narrow browsing in the app to kid and teen categories.
This is an easy problem to fix. Sign into your OverDrive account and under settings there is an option to hide adult cover images so they are not displayed and you can also select the maturity level. Plus there are eReading rooms for Kids and Teens that give a different layout than the main page and highlight different collections.
I would advise the mother to alter one or two different settings in her Overdrive account.
After she logs into her account on acla.lib.overdrive.com, she should click the “Settings” option on the right side of the page.
She can scroll down to the “Maturity level(s)“ section of the Settings page. Then she can change the ending range of the maturity level content to Juvenile or Young Adult instead of Mature Adult.
She can also click or tap on the “No” option in the next section of the Settings page, entitled “Cover Images”, to turn off the display of racy cover images.
Censor those covers? If you must, just log into your Overdrive account, go to settings, and either limit the maturity of the content, or choose “No” under cover images.
From the CLP Teen page, then under Books & More, you can access the Teen digital collection (or http://acla.lib.overdrive.com/3600B04D-217B-4D22-A554-B27437CDD8D4/10/46/en/default.htm).
Use the filters or set up a kids page. Either way will block the inappropriate content for children.
I would direct patron to the CLP website–click on the eCLP icon. From here she can access Kids eCLP. Her daughter can then browse OverDrive for Kids, which can be bookmarked on the ipad for easy access. OverDrive for Kids is easy to navigate and allows the patron to browse by subject, collections, and reading level! Plus if offers access to e-books, e-audio, and even e-videos.
Overdrive offers two options: 1) set the maturity level to Juvenile to Young Adult and 2) select “NO” for cover images. Both of these require logging into the Overdrive Account from the library’s digital collection website, select “settings” and then “maturity level” and/or “cover images”. Perhaps this is something the mom would like to do with her daughter once they set up her Overdrive account using her library card.
Sign into the Overdrive website, go to your settings and manage the Maturity Level as well as the Cover Images.
Alternatively, if the mother is worried about Overdrive as a whole, there are other resources for Children (BookFLIX, TumbleBooks, etc) and for Teens: Go to the library website, go to the Teens page, select “Books & more” and then click on the link for the Teen Digital Collection (for this option, it will only be Teen books with no chance of adult books appearing).
The Overdrive page has a page designed for Children called E-Reading Room. There’s also a special page for Teens. One scrolls down to click on KidsCollection or TeensCollection.
The patron can limit what is seen. One logs into Overdrive and goes to Account. Under Account, one selects Settings.The patron can change the maturity levels and cover images.
The patron can also try TumbleBook Library.
The patron can also try OneClick Digital and search by Target Audience.
OverDrive-> My Account-> Settings, I would recommend Juvenile or Young Adult due to Mom’s concern. I would also tell her she can turn off “Cover Images” on the Settings page by selecting the “NO” option.
The patron has several options. The patron can use children resources – tumble books and book flix. Patron can utilize the childrens page in overdrive. The patron also can go to their account in overdrive, select settings, select maturity level. This way the patron can eliminate explicit materials from being viewed by minors.
The mother can set the maturity level for her child by signing into her child’s account , clicking on settings under “account” and choosing the age level she would like to control the content of the covers. And she may also choose to eliminate the covers under “settings”, however I would not recommend this because I think it would be boring for a child to have no illustrations and in the end, it would be demotivating.
I know we aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I agree with you, chris, that the lack of images could cause a child to lose interest.
I would suggest that the mother open her Overdrive app, sign in, go to “Account”, and then go to “Settings”. in settings, she can chose to replace mature book cover images with basic cover images. In addition, she can set the maturity level of the books that are displayed. Finally, Overdive has a Kids Collection and a Teen Collection that she might want to steer her daughter to.
This one stumped me. I was thankful to be able to read all the comments and learn from them.
To display or hide mature cover images, follow the steps below.
1.Log into your Account on your library’s digital collection website.
2.Select your Settings page.
3.Under “Cover images,” select Yes to show adult cover images, or select No to replace them with a basic cover.