IBM Partners with Schools for Vital Source Technologies

HostReview.com
Thursday, December 16, 2004; 12:25 PM

A group of schools in 14 districts nationwide are turning to digital textbooks and libraries to replace hard copy books this school year. As part of a program with IBM and Vital Source Technologies, the schools are creating custom curricula and portable libraries for their students and teachers.

"We want students to be able to carry around on their notebooks a library of rich resources customized to our curriculum," said Sister Suzanne Cooke, Headmistress at Carrollton.

Vital Source is developing a Custom Curriculum Solution for each of the districts. Each curriculum is designed to meet the specific needs and educational objectives of those schools. For some schools, Vital Source is replacing textbooks.

"We are pleased to customize our product to meet the needs of a diverse group of innovative schools across the country," said Frank Daniels III, CEO and president of Vital Source.

At all of the schools, IBM preloads the VitalSource Technologies VitalSource Key with Personal Portable Library, a non-customized solution, on education models of its ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops.

The Personal Portable Library features more than 3,000 works including history books, art, maps and classic literature. The Vital Source Key is the interface for the texts.

Schools, such as Carrollton, are turning to digital textbooks and libraries for a variety of reasons. Digital content gives students the most current information and can be continually updated.

Digital content can help to eliminate textbook shortages. Many school districts face book shortages because orders are typically limited to a percentage of the previous year's enrollment. In fast-growing school districts, this can leave some students without books.