Kyle
A Minneapolis startup called Brain Hive is looking to solve a problem for school libraries across the country. That problem, is access to books. With such a diverse taste in content in American public schools, school libraries often fall short in fulfilling student requests for books.
With the wide adoption of tablets and e-books Brain Hive has come up with a solution. Brain Hive has developed a platform that allows students to rent books from their digital library as a supplement to their schools actual library.
The Brain Hive service will offer traditional e-books, non fiction books, graphic novels and books curated by school librarians and administrators. Through the schools portal into the Brain Hive system, librarians and administrators can determine which content is age appropriate, set limitations on numbers of rentals at a time per student, and decide to offer titles around the current curriculum.
More after the break
Brain Hive charges $1.00 per rental and that fee is absorbed by the school. With schools that are using the Brain Hive system, students get their online account that is tied in with their school and they can rent as many book at a time as the school allows.
“We got the idea from school librarians,” said Brain Hive VP Terri Soutor in an interview with BetaKit. “We’ve done a lot of research on their specific needs relative to this digital shift towards ebooks, and some of the specific challenges that school libraries face relative to making that shift.”
While it’s not clear how much privacy the students get as far as their rentals are concerned, Brain Hive does supply information back to the school in regards to the popular books, how many students are checking out books etc. All of the key metrics are provided back to the school which can help the schools determine the best rentals for the students and plan curriculum for future school years.
Linkage:
Find out more about Brain Hive here at their website
Source: BetaKit
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