TumbleBooks?

[Gin]

Is anyone familiar with/using Tumblebooks e-book subscription service in your library?
I've been poking around with a free trial to determine if it is worthwhile. If you are offering it to patrons, do you see pro's and con's or get patron comments?

[ozlibrarian]

Hi Gin, we have just last week renewed our subscription to Tumble Talking Books. Initially we didn't get a huge hit rate (people access the site via our library site from home). Tomorrow at storytime I will be giving a TTB demonstration ... Tumble picture books are absolutely gorgeous. The only feedback I have had is regarding the American accents in which the books are read, Australians on the whole much prefer Australian or British narrators on their TBs.
I will keep you posted. I am a huge fan of talking books myself (although I'm not being very 2.0 in getting my mp3 player to work properly).

[Gin]

Yes - most American's I know prefer British and Australian narrators as well!! Thanks for the reply. I was able to explore the site with a free trial and I was impressed with the variety of publishers and titles. I believe we will be purchasing a subscription - thank you also for the demonstration idea!

[Jessica Whitehead]

My library has had a tumblebooks subscription for quite a while. It's nice, when it works. Our server is really slow and we can't always access it, though. I have used tumblebooks during story time and the kids enjoy it. Patrons with a high speed connection seem to be able to access tumblebooks with no problem.

[June Keuhn]

It has foreign language books to if you have French or Spanish teachers.

[AndreaF]

We added it in May and are very pleased. Patrons really like it and use has steadily increased. Use has gone up quite a bit since August when we started heavily promoting it among area teachers. We've had some problems when teachers have tried to log in an entire classroom at the same time. That seems to overload servers.

[Suzy M.]

We have TBs here and I find that parents are more interested in getting their children away from the screen than in finding more for them to look at.
Having said all of that, my 3 year old loves Tumblebooks.

[logan]

how do i get the books

[June Keuhn]

It is a database. Our public library subscribes in Corning.

[Kayla Hebert]

Our patrons really like TumbleBooks. www.oplib.org. One aspect most frequently appreciated is that stories have a link to AR information. It's a good resource for both beginning readers and for older readers who need to read something, but don't have time to come into the library. I like the games and quizzes, too. I don't really have any gripes about it.