Manitou District 14 leads local school districts in e-book checkouts

Dec. 22—There's not a chair to be found inside Kate Kettler's Ute Pass Elementary School room, with students instead taking their places at assorted bean bags by the door or on a carpet tucked behind bookshelves. That's where the day's adventure begins.

Every other week, students go on daring rescue missions with armored bears, board a magical and science-defying school bus or intrude on their wimpy friend's diary.

"It's like they've disconnected with this reality and they've made friends with these fictional characters," Kettler, the school's art teacher and librarian, said. "You escape to this whole other world, and it's magical."

And these days, Kettler's students largely experience those worlds not by the turn of a page, but by the scroll of an iPad.

Manitou District 14 checks out more e-books per student than any other local school district, according to data from OverDrive, a digital distributor of e-books and e-audiobooks. Statewide, Manitou places third in e-book checkouts.

The roughly 1,400-student district read close to 7,000 e-books last school year, averaging five books per student.

A love of literature is embedded within the culture of Manitou, according to Amy Bradbury, a technology teacher who also oversees the library at Manitou Springs Elementary School. She's worked her fair share of book fairs and fundraisers through the years, she said, and the community has always pulled through when the library was in need.

"I've never worked at a school like this before," Bradbury said. "It's small-town amazing."

Kids grew up with a convenient walk down to Manitou Springs Library, which has long served as the heart of the community. The public library's close proximity made it a natural partner for D-14 schools. Their relationship recently took a new and innovative step.

Manitou worked with Pikes Peak Library District over the summer to get library cards in the hands of any interested D-14 student. For the first time in the library district's history, parents could ditch the traditional paper form in favor of an e-signature.

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D-14 incorporated an electronic library application form into this year's annual student registration process, which every parent must work through on behalf of their child. More than 1,000 parents requested a card.

"One of our big things that we think about a lot is how can we remove barriers to people using our materials, so figuring out if we can use this e-form with an e-signature has really been a new thing for us," said Joanna Rendon, director of young adult services at the Pikes Peak Library District.

Rendon can't quite pinpoint what sets Manitou apart from other districts' reading habits, she said. The district eliminated designated librarian positions in recent years, merging the role with that of the tech department or, in Kettler's case, the art teacher. Rendon looks to the personnel change as a possible answer.

"They really talk about their e-books and e-audiobooks a lot with their students, so they really know it's available," Rendon said.

The move instilled new life into the district's library culture: Cathrine Olimb, the director of technology who has overseen Manitou's transition to e-books and its library card initiative, said OverDrive has made reading a far more accessible experience for students of all backgrounds and abilities.

Dyslexic students can choose their font for ease of reading. Students who don't have the ability to hold a book can have them read aloud and change the voice to fit their preference. Students who are learning English, or even those looking to enhance their vocabulary, can highlight words to see their definitions and hear pronunciations.

While Kettler notes e-books are not a "silver bullet" to reading — distractions are just a click away on an iPad, after all — they are the latest way of getting books in the hands of young readers, opening up more worlds to their fingertips.

"I don't know what life will be like in a hundred years," Kettler said, "but I know that today, reading is important."