Profiles in Collaboration: Sawyer Free Library (Gloucester) Goes "Fish"ing By Cynthia Williams, YA Librarian

This year the O'Maley School Community Summer Reading book was Fish, by L.S. Matthews. The Sawyer Free Library, in collaboration with the O'Maley School, provided the option of an audio version to accompany student reading. The audio book Fish, funded by a grant from the Gloucester School Connection, was downloaded onto 12 iPod shuffles provided by the Sawyer Free Library. One of the interesting aspects of the book is not knowing whether the main character is male or female; this is equally true when listening as the main character is the narrator.

This was a pilot program developed by the Sawyer Free Library Director Roger Brisson and myself, with the goal of providing supplemental support to enable students to read the book while listening. Those students identified by their teachers as having reading difficulties were sent a letter before school ended to give them the opportunity to check one out before the general population became aware of the program. We also created an acceptable use policy requiring a parent to sign when checking out the shuffle which had a two week loan period.

Nineteen middle school students took advantage of this program and I am delighted to report that all the iPods were returned without any tampering.