The College Library has recently added a range of digital eBooks and eAudiobooks to their collection which has been received with great enthusiasm from the students and staff alike.  

Recognising the growing trend for digital self-publishing, which does not always produce quality material, a great deal of research was undertaken to find a supplier that could offer a range of top titles suitable for the age range at the College. After researching a number of suppliers, College Librarian, Anita Vandenberghe chose BorrowBox.

A large supplier of eBooks and eAudiobooks to Public Libraries in Australia and New Zealand, Saint Kentigern is the first College library in New Zealand to have chosen BorrowBox to supply an e-collection. As the leading digital library download solution in the British Commonwealth, they have thousands of Australian, New Zealand and international titles to choose from and they provide high quality material.

The College Library has started with a fledgling collection of 200 eBooks and 90 eAudiobooks which can be downloaded to desktop, laptop, iPad and mobile devices. The e-collection is available 24/7 from library, classroom, home or anywhere in the world - borrowers just need to log in to BorrowBox.

The eAudiobooks are in MP3 format and students and staff can listen to top performers tell a spellbinding story. Reluctant readers and students with reading difficulties benefit hugely from having a wide range of eAudiobook titles available. Reading and listening to a story being told has never been easier.

The e-collection is fully integrated into the library catalogue system so titles are easy to find and if the ebook or eAudiobook is already on loan, the title can be reserved in the same way one would for a hard copy edition. Before the three-week loan expires, the borrower receives an email with the warning that there are three days left to finish the book, or it can be renewed.

Students and staff are very enthusiastic about the new collection and already Anita Vandenberghe, the librarian of the College, has had to purchase extra titles to meet demand. Anita emphasises that when it comes to reading the format is not important, but the quality and the range of titles are. ‘It’s important that students have a choice; getting a physical book off the shelf during our opening hours or downloading it to their device whenever they feel like it, as long as they’re reading, we’re happy!’

‘You can’t succeed unless you read,’ can be countered in some circles yet it goes without saying that the kind of sophisticated reading skills demanded by high-level academic or professional work – the ability to understand multiple plots or complex issues, the expertise to know immediately what is crucial to a text and what can be skimmed – can be acquired only through years of avid reading. The College library is a foundation for literacy programmes and a catalyst for the development of lifelong readers. 

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