Dodge City Public Library Teams Up with Dodge City Public Schools to Expand Access to Ebooks and Digital Audiobooks for Students

DODGE CITY, Kan. – As educators seek more creative ways to support students’ learning, a key resource for schools is the local public library. Now, Dodge City Public Library and Dodge City Public Schools have formed an innovative new partnership to increase students’ access to ebooks and digital audiobooks by combining the library’s and school’s digital reading resources in one app. This Public Library CONNECT partnership is facilitated by OverDrive, the popular digital reading platform serving both the library and school.

The partnership provides safe access to thousands of age-appropriate titles for students’ use inside the classroom, at home and anywhere 24/7. Through Sora, the student reading app for Dodge City Public Schools, students can now borrow from both the school’s collection of classroom and pleasure reading titles as well as from Dodge City Public Library’s juvenile, young adult and adult digital collections. Sora will automatically filter content to only include age-appropriate titles depending on each student’s grade level.

Students can easily log into the library’s digital collection through Sora using their school credentials rather than requiring a separate library card. In addition, Sora supports teachers by offering education-specific tools like achievements, exportable notes, and reading progress that encourage individualized learning.

“I am excited that this partnership was able to happen with the help of OverDrive and the work of Michelle Reid, Librarian at Dodge City High School,” said Lori Juhlin, Executive Director of Dodge City Public Library. “Providing access to digital resources is vital to the community and enhances literacy. By working together, we can create opportunities, become stronger, and support our community.”

Michelle Reid, School Librarian at Dodge City High School, added, “We are very excited for our students to have improved access to the digital materials at the Dodge City Public Library through the Sora app. Students will be able to access library materials from their school computers or their personal tablets and smartphones at any time. Providing as wide a library collection as possible is necessary to increase students’ interest in reading, and this access will offer even more options for our students to both enjoy reading and help them increase their reading ability.”

The Sora app was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions 2019 and is available for Dodge City Public Schools students to download through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and on Chromebooks that support the Google Play Store. It is also available for use in web browsers at https://soraapp.com on any computer.

Since Dodge City Public Library is a member of Sunflower eLibrary, the entire Dodge City community can also borrow and read Sunflower eLibrary’s complete ebook and digital audiobook collection. With a valid library card from Dodge City Public Library and the award-winning Libby app, customers can enjoy thousands of ebooks and audiobooks including bestsellers and new releases. Readers of all ages can select from virtually every subject ranging from mystery, romance, children’s, business and more. Libby can be used on any major device or computer, including Apple (R), Android™, Chromebook™ and Kindle(R) (U.S. only).
The Libby and Sora apps were built by OverDrive and OverDrive Education respectively. To learn more, visit www.overdrive.com/apps/libby/ and https://company.overdrive.com/k-12-schools/discover-sora/.