Kindles in School Library

[timbo343]

We have just purchased 3 kindles for our library and not having used one myself but other colleagues have, i was wondering if and how people manage these in a school library area.

 

After having a quick go on them we have got a problem where we have to download a book 3 times in order to use them on each kindle but we have seen calibre to update them via USB. We would use wireless but our wireless isnt great (hopefully getting replaced) and as for our websense, i dont think that is upto it to be fair (another product which i will be ditching this year)

 

so i am wanting to know how (if you have kindles in your school) you go about managing these devices in you school.

[Heebeejeebee]

We only have two and I've not paid a great deal of attention to them but I've done the USB transfer thing successfully a few times (and yes you do have to download each book per Kindle). We don't connect them to wireless just because there's no need but if you do don't allow the one click thingy to buy books just in case. To be honest I do like to see them occasionally so I know their condition and I try to make bulk book purchases if possible.

 

HBJB

[timbo343]

Thought as much. I would have thought amazon would have done things a bit differently for schools though, something along the lines of organisation with registered devices rather than 6 devices per account. If you have 12 then, you have to buy the book twice and have 12 copies of it. Seems a bit silly if you ask me to have the same book x amount of times.

 

i have just stumbled upon this:

 

Why We Won’t Purchase More Kindles at The Unquiet Library | The Unquiet Librarian

[bjohnny42]

So we had a request for some Kindles for use in the Library and to loan to some post 16 students and help them prepare for reading around before university interviews. So I’ve got a couple in to work out how we might manage them and get content on. This is what I’ve found out from having a look at them for a few hours this afternoon.

 

You need an email address associated with an Amazon account with password on. The password isn’t needed on the kindle. I’m suggesting school code (Grange Hill in this example) kindle department number “qhKindlePolitics1” or “qhKindleLibrary3” This email address only being an additional one attached to the member of staff purposed with looking after them! That way they see if something has been ordered for them as they would get an email.

 

Make a really comprehensive first name when registering so that appears on your kindle in the name. Don’t use spaces.

 

To get anything onto a new account you need to have entered credit card details. These can then be removed from the main amazon account name. Not from within the kindle part of it or on the kindle itself. The credit card details don’t appear to ever go anywhere near the kindle itself. Once the credit card details have been removed I was able to download a free book onto the kindle which I wasn’t before. But I’m not sure that it was only because it was an hour or so before that I had removed it. I think it was because it had previously been my 1 click address. I added the school address and then made that my 1 click destination and it then appears ok to download free content on it. I also have removed my personal address from the account. I then tried to purchase a book and it wouldn’t let me as I didn’t have a payment method.

So we've had a request for some Kindle e-readers in school for post 16 use and here are my findings from having a go for a couple of hours with two playing at registering and de-registering wiping etc. It does appear to be that you would need a separate email address and amazon account for every 6 kindles which could be quite burdensome if you had quite a lot as a shared resource. I can't say I’m any kind of expert in this, but this is what I’ve found out.

 

Easiest way to register a Kindle is by logging into the account in amazon and then registering a device. (You only need to type in the 16 digit account number.)

 

It appears you can copy a book to up to 6 kindles.

 

Turnoff Synchronisation using your so that multiple students who have been temporarily loaned a kindle can work on them without having it ask about synchronisation all the time.

 

If you were to reset to factory settings you would delete all your content on the kindle and remove wifi settings.

 

De-register using the amazon account rather than reset to factory settings so you don’t have to put in any wifi details in again. This doesn’t however remove any files copied into the documents folder on the kindle. It also doesn’t appear to remove any books that were previously on that kindle and if you have the same book on 2 accounts it remembers where they were on the other account and asks you to sync to it.

 

If you deregister enough kindles to get down to one and then subsequently go back upto two it turns synchronisation back on.

 

You can’t accidently register your kindle to two accounts.

 

As you don’t need the kindle infront of you to register or de-register you could change its configuration without seeing it and potentially allow someone to see a totally different set of books.

 

Books don’t appear on your kindle until you download them if you have more than one. (It only takes a few seconds on either a wifi or 3g connection) Even though you have them in your kindle library. You can put different books onto your different devices from your kindle library either online or directly onto the device itself.

 

You don’t appear to be able to lock them down in any way so users could turn on wifi turn it off or make it forget any wifi settings, deregister, change the device name, put a device password on, change the time, link the device to a twitter or facebook account, share or link their highlights to your account online. If you could put some sort of master password in to block out these settings then this would be great. Because you can’t then there is the chance for mischief. But to be fair it doesn’t take too long to wipe them and then put the content back on. And if you are willing to put £80 or £150 worth of kit in the hand of a student to read some books well surely you should be able to trust them a little bit….

 

Mass education management tools would be a right boon too.

 

If anyone has any ideas then get em on here!

[Heebeejeebee]

... Also I believe you can email PDFs to the kindle email address / transfer via USB if you have resources in this format.

 

HBJB

[enjay]

Doesn't help the OP, but to others I would say that before buying Kindles, look at what you can do with them as compared to other readers - for example, our library system (MLS Eclipse) is about to get a module which allows people to borrow books onto a myriad of eReaders, pretty much every type except the Kindle (for some reason, Amazon restrict this feature to certain countries, and the UK isn't one of them).

 

Also, if you are going to use them wirelessly, look at the proxy settings - Kindles cannot connect through a proxy server, for example, and there's something about DNS servers too, although I can't remember the specifics, just that Kindles connect to one of our wireless networks but not the other.

 

I do think they are worth looking into, however, as there are benefits. I prefer reading on a Kindle to paper, and I read quicker on Kindle; the cheaper price of books, the number of free books, and the relatively sturdiness of a Kindle-vs-paper mean they will pay for themselves reasonably quicker, so long as the kids don't break (or sell!) them.

[teejay]

@enjay we looked in some depth at the ebooks through Eclipse and when you get through the sales speak you find it's eye wateringly expensive, so we've backed off for the moment until there is some competition in the market.