Big publishers won't let professor digitize books for K-12 experiments, so Prof. Bellaver is getting them elsewhere

Moderator’s note: Some of the giants of p-publishing rejected Prof. Richard Bellaver‘s requests to allow small numbers of books to be digitized for his valuable K-12 experiments—even though he was willing to pay. So what happens? The Ball State University professor is going elsewhere for his content. Lesson here for the big boys? Also see link at the end of this post. – D.R.

By Prof. Richard Bellaver

The bane of my existence in the world of handheld computers has been lack of e-book content. You just might have read about my weeping because publishers won’t provide content for me to use with elementary students. Well, no more! I am now working with Learning A-Z. They are providing the research project with free access to two of their websites: Reading A-Z and RAZ-Kids—both are on-line reading programs.

I subscribed to Reading A-Z earlier this year and downloaded several leveled books to be used by third and fourth graders. I had to go through a messy conversion process to load them onto my ancient REB 1200 devices. I now have access to 600 titles and a smooth conversion source that will save my students many hours in loading the devices.

E-books as motivators for struggling readers

We will clean up the present content and add a few titles this year as we look to prove that the use of handheld computers can aid education in the use of dictionaries. Next year we will do much more rigorous testing with many more titles and with more students involved, to demonstrate that e-books motivate struggling readers.

The folks at Learning A-Z understand the significance of advancing the art of computer learning. I wish I could say as much for the rest of the publishing industry.

Related: The Platform: Giving Book Readers What They Want, by Peter Osnos, a media fellow for the Century Foundation and a founder of the Caravan Project. He warns that readers will bypass retailers and other content-providers that try to resist digitization efforts.