Brain Hive Enhances District Management of Its On-Demand eBook Service for U.S. Schools

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As more schools move to adopt the Brain Hive on-demand eBook service for their students and teachers, Brain Hive, LLC, announced today that it has added several school district management tools to its platform. The Brain Hive eBook collection has also expanded with popular and praised titles from Orca Book Publishers, Saddleback Educational Publishing, Rourke Educational Media, and Dawn Publications.

“The early enthusiasm for Brain Hive is a direct reflection of the great need in the school market for an easy and affordable business model for eBooks”

The nationwide eBook lending service was launched in June 2012 to support digital reading in U.S. K–12 schools with free membership and unlimited access to a $150,000 eBook collection. Brain Hive is the first on-demand eBook rental service for schools, instantly expanding a school’s digital instructional resources with access to more than 3,700 fiction and nonfiction eBooks, as well as printable activities, teaching resources, and online Accelerated Reader quizzes from Renaissance Learning. Students and educators check out eBooks from Brain Hive on demand, while the school pays just $1.00 for each book circulated, offering an easy, cost-effective way to rejuvenate school library collections. Hundreds of schools have joined Brain Hive since its launch, and the company expects hundreds more school members in 2013.

The latest school district management features allow a district account administrator to allocate and manage his or her Brain Hive budget across several schools within the district, select preferred eBook collections for its schools, import and manage users for the district, as well as establish student eBook access and checkout policies. Administrators will also have access to district-wide data on eBook usage and digital reading to help districts justify future purchases and measure the true value of digital reading in schools.

“The early enthusiasm for Brain Hive is a direct reflection of the great need in the school market for an easy and affordable business model for eBooks,” said Terri Soutor, vice president of Brain Hive, LLC. “We are thrilled to be able to meet this need with our on-demand ‘buck-a-book’ model and curated collection of eBook titles from top children’s publishers. We are focused on continuing to build an innovative eBook service that meets the educational needs of our nation’s students, as well as the business and technology demands of K-12 public and private schools.”

In addition to the new titles from Orca Book Publishers, Saddleback Educational Publishing, Rourke Educational Media, and Dawn Publications, Brain Hive includes thousands of titles from respected children’s publishers including Random House Children’s Books, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Open Road Integrated Media, Charlesbridge Publishing, Lee & Low Books, Lerner Publishing Group, Annick Press, August House, Andersen Press USA, Gecko Press, The Creative Company, The Kane Press, Red Chair Press, and Stoke Books. Brain Hive will continue to release new titles from additional publishers offering a dynamic, continually updated content library to support teaching and learning in schools.

Brain Hive was developed to meet the unique needs and gaps that exist today in the school market for eBook availability, discoverability, ease-of-use, and affordability. With Brain Hive, schools don’t spend limited education funds paying top-dollar for eBooks that don’t circulate but rather pay only for the books being read by their students and teachers. Brain Hive changes the eBook purchasing paradigm, making it possible for schools to revitalize their library collections with thousands of titles and no investment risk.

More information and membership sign-up is available at www.brainhive.com.

About Brain Hive, LLC
Brain Hive™ provides an innovative eBook rental solution for K-12 schools, offering a simple and economical alternative to the traditional methods for eBook procurement. Schools pay just $1 each time a title is checked out from a large online eBook collection from children’s publishers. The Brain Hive administrator can easily manage content, spending and access with user-friendly online tools. For a media kit, more information, to view a “how it works” video, or to sign-up for free membership, visit www.brainhive.com or call 855.554.HIVE.