From The Trussville Tribune staff reports

BIRMINGHAM The Jefferson County School system announced a unique partnership to promote digital learning among children in area communities.

The Jefferson County Board of Education, Homewood City Schools, Hoover City Schools and public libraries in Jefferson County, came together for the use e-books and e-audiobooks to make materials available to students. The purpose is to promote literacy and modernize learning.

Students will be able to access the librarys digital resources by using an app. Sora will allow the school systems to share their collections. Jefferson County libraries will also share their digital collections for juveniles and young adults. Sora will also provide educators with tools such as achievements, exportable notes and reading progress that encourages individualized learning.

Tobin M. Cataldo, the executive director of the Jefferson County Library Cooperative, said public libraries are charged to reach out to communities to offer education and services that promote literacy.

With the School-Library Partnership through OverDrive, our goals are to simplify access to these critical resources for our children and to grow community partnerships, said Cataldo. As the public libraries in Jefferson County have experienced over the last 41 years, cooperation and resource sharing are cost-effective and have wide-ranging benefits; this is a message we stand ready to share.

The libraries will also be available to students who wish to read for pleasure. Jefferson County Schools Curriculum Specialist Angela Belrose said studies show pleasure reading could positively impact education within the school system.

Reading for pleasure not only improves educational outcomes but improves overall wellbeing, including increased empathy, better interpersonal relationships and decreases incidents of depression, Rose explained.

The Sora app was named one ofTIMEs Best Inventions 2019and is available for Jefferson County Board of Education and Homewood City 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 athttps://soraapp.comon any computer.

The entire Jefferson County community can access Public Libraries in Jefferson Countys complete ebook and e-audiobook collection through the award-winningLibby app. Readers can use Libby on any major device or computer, including Apple(R), Android, Chromebook and Kindle(R)(US only).

Both reading apps are built by OverDrive and OverDrive Education. To learn more, visit https://meet.soraapp.com/andhttps://meet.libbyapp.com/.

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Jefferson County Schools teaming up with libraries to promote digital learning on and off campus - Trussvilletribune