Media Center offers students free e-books
E-books offer a safer alternative during COVID-19
The Media Center is now offering free e-books to students, according to Media Specialist Ellen George. Because of COVID-19, e-books offer a safer alternative to paper books.
November 6, 2020
With paper books being harder to access safely and affordably due to COVID-19, Media Specialist Ellen George said she hopes that giving Park students access to books available for download e-books will continue to inspire students to read.
“I want to encourage people to read as much as they can and because of coronavirus, it’s harder to get print books now from libraries and so e-books are a good alternative,” George said.
Junior Olivia Kelly said the idea of Park offering students e-books excites her as they are a safer option due to COVID-19.
“You can download an ebook and read it offline stuck at home. You have like nothing better to do, it’s really great. And it’s a better alternative than paper copies because paper copies can preserve stuff like disease in them,” Kelly said.
According to junior Andre Barajas, e-books make reading more accessible and also offers a safer, no contact way to continue to read new books.
“(Access to e-books is) just a good thing to have, especially with COVID,” Barajas said. “It makes (reading) more accessible for more kids. They’re obviously technology issues with people, but if kids have access to technology for e-books, they don’t even have to come to school at all and they can avoid any sort of contact.”
George recommends everyone to have a Hennepin County library card so they can access additional e-books from the Hennepin County libraries.
“An even better option is Hennepin County Library — everybody should have a library card,” George said. “That is some of our best tax dollars at work for each one of us in the community.”
Barajas said he wished Park would have given students access to e-books earlier and not waited till COVID-19.
“(E-books) should have been something brought up before (COVID-19) because we obviously have the technology capable of doing this sort of process. It’s surprising that we haven’t started it till now,” Barajas said.
Although happy to hear about the new access to e-books for Park students, Kelly said she wished students also had access to online textbooks.
“If they did (online) textbooks that would have been great because we won’t have to worry about not being able to physically go into school and drop off a physical copy,” Kelly said. “The stress of walking around with the textbook would be minimized too.”
Overall, George hopes to keep students reading in order to set them up for successful futures.
“We’re doing our best to connect to people with reading because the more you read the better you get at it, the better you do in all your classes, you do better in life,” George said.
If you are interested in finding out more information on how to access e-books from Park, contact Ellen George.
