Cathy Leverkus (’81, MLIS) is in a unique position to show students the benefits of their school library and how to enhance their learning through its use. As director of library and information services at The Willows Community School in Culver City, she manages everything from print and ebook collections to online databases that introduce research and computing skills as early as developmental kindergarten.
“The library is definitely a part of the curriculum at The Willows,” says Leverkus of the library’s role in the independent school that serves developmental kindergarten through 8 grade students. “Kids come to the library once a week all the way through the 8 grade for library skills and research instruction with emphasis on ‘The Standards for the 21 Century Learner,’ which is published by the American Library Association. Students are encouraged to visit the library as frequently as they would like; there are usually groups studying in the library throughout the day.
“I worked with our middle school intersession on writing and publishing a picture book, and I added the books to the library catalog so all the students can check them out; the middle school students were excited to search for their names in the library catalog. For most middle school students, this was their first writing and publishing experience.”
Leverkus shares her expertise with technology and ebooks in her book, which she co-authored with Shannon Acedo, “Ebooks and the School Library Program: A Practical Guide for the School Librarian” (American Library Association for the American Association of School Librarians, 2013). In this handbook, the authors delineate the ins and outs of starting or enhancing ebook collections for school libraries, including topics such as publication of ebooks, devices, vendors, digital copyright law, and how to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of online library management.
The Willows Community School website has a library webpage for students and for parents, which includes access to all books, ebooks, audiobooks, and the research library. Leverkus, who uses an Integrated Library System (ILS) at The Willows, describes it as a boon for teaching research skills to all levels, particularly in the case of ebook resources. Demonstrating a search on the ebook database platform for “Japanese cuisine,” she quickly locates not only ten ebooks that contain the information she wants, but the platform search also highlights the exact sections in the books that are relevant to her search.
“When parents come to look at The Willows, I tell them that nonfiction is one section of the library where the idea that ebooks will replace print makes so much sense because an ebook platform is much easier to search than a physical book collection,” says Leverkus. “A nonfiction ebook platform can function like a database. The titles in the main Willows nonfiction ebook platform, which is hosted by Gale Virtual Reference Library, has been chosen to supplement the various research projects in kindergarten through 8th grade.
“Children are always asking questions, and inquiry is such an important part of education these days,” she says. “In developmental kindergarten, children perform research tasks and look for things they are interested in, with help from the teachers. You don’t want to extinguish that natural inquiry. So, I’ll teach students how to use the library digital resources to find the answer to their specific questions.”
The Willows has a one-to-one device program, beginning in the second grade. In developmental kindergarten and 1 grade, teachers have a tech cart that they checkout for their students, or if needed, teachers can request tablets or laptops for each child from the tech department. All classrooms have Smartboards, which enable classes to read an ebook together. Leverkus notes that most ebooks in the K-3 grade levels have audio capabilities for emergent readers or students with disabilities.
“It’s important that everybody has access to books, whether they do not have an e-reader or are physically disabled or have a learning disability,” she says. “I have a collection of Nooks available, because we want to be able to not only cross the digital divide but the economic and social divide as well. I also have iPads for children with different learning disabilities, since these devices have accessibility controls that you can tailor for motor skills or visual disabilities.”
Leverkus’s interest in the digital library grew when as a parent volunteer at The Open School she utilized her knowledge from UCLA’s MLIS program and her personal interest in computers to automate the library and establish a library program.
“I started the library curriculum at my children’s school, because they had a library, but not a librarian,” Leverkus says. “I began teaching bibliography and library organization systems. Apple Computers was testing a library automation system and I worked with the [version] that the school was looking at, and would give Apple feedback. That’s when I decided that my next [career] step needed to be in a school.”
After seeing what she had accomplished at The Open School, parents at The Willows asked Leverkus to automate the school’s library, She eventually joined the school’s faculty in 1994.
“I worked with some of the parents to automate their book collection, and then I wrote a proposal for library lessons that could work with the school curriculum,” recalls Leverkus. “In the early 1990s, I added CDs of Encyclopedias to the collection. And as soon as encyclopedias were available online, I subscribed to the Britannica Encyclopedia database. That was one of the first databases we used at the school. Then, we added databases like Proquest eLibrary and others that students used to find information for their research projects.”
Leverkus, who holds her undergraduate degree in music from the University of Utah and has studied at a conservatory of music in Europe, decided to apply for the MLIS program at UCLA IS to earn her master’s degree and find a new career path.
“Originally, I was studying bibliography,” she says. “When I started at UCLA, they were just developing the program for the Melvyl Catalog. I was able to take a class on programming languages through the library school and that changed my academic direction. Library automation intrigued me.
“My graduate thesis was on the bibliographic evaluation of 18 Century English music,” Leverkus says. “The bibliographic analysis of period music still interests me as well. I love research, hence my interest in all these great databases and research tools. But I also love computers. The MLIS program at UCLA was the perfect program for me because of the information science side – I didn’t even know that was a part of libraries before I attended UCLA.”
Leverkus says that she hopes “Ebooks and the School Library Program” will encourage librarians and schools to see that “Ebooks are going to continually become easier to work with.” Having created ebook platforms for DK-2, 3-5 and 6-8 grade students at The Willows, she says that managing an ebook collection is a boon for librarians who strive to keep access to their materials age-appropriate.
“We interviewed a lot of librarians as we were writing the book, and also sent out a survey,” she says. Most of the librarians who answered our survey wanted to know how they could control the access to books in ebook collections. Many school districts purchase ebooks for all the schools in the district. Librarians wanted to develop different collections for their K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 grade students. One solution is just to develop multiple ebook platforms for the different grade levels. Not that we want to limit books, but we want to make sure that books that are good for certain grade levels are available to those groups.”
Leverkus also says that ease of access will encourage young readers to check out books from the comfort of home, and still allow librarians to introduce patrons to individual books and oversee circulation of the ebook collection.
“Access is becoming a real asset of the ebook,” she says. “Also, the fact that I can add ebooks to the ILS and they can be checked out right from a student’s iPad is a natural asset of ebook collections. If they have any problems with the app, I can help with the access – and that’s just the beginning. You can use the ILS search engine from home, and download the ebooks to an e-reader.”
Leverkus says that most publishers are working with ebook platforms that cater to libraries, such as OverDrive, Access 360, and FollettShelf. However, she notes that some publishers still only offer their ebook catalog through their own platforms or on Amazon.
“As long as these publishers continue to drag their feet as far as offering access to ebooks through library ebook platforms, libraries will not be able to offer all the books that are available in print in an ebook format,” says Leverkus. “Some publishers are not offering ebook editions of their books, but most publishers do create both ebook and print formats for their titles.
“Now is a great time to add ebooks to a library collection. Many patrons have been introduced to the format and are eager to try reading an ebook.”
Leverkus says that it is still important to maintain both print and ebook collections, because patrons may be more comfortable reading print than ebooks and vice versa.
“I have a K-3 collection of ebooks, and the teachers in those classes use those because they have audio, so pre-readers can actually listen to ebooks,” she notes. “Kids that are introduced to ebooks at a young age become comfortable using them. But the kids who were introduced to reading with print books would rather have print, because that’s what they are used to. Initially, they would say, ‘No, I want to feel the pages and turn them.’”
“I believe that print and e-books will go hand-in-hand. It’s not that one will replace the other – we will be using both.”