Damage to ereaders?

[Joanna Arkans]

Hello everyone,

We recently purchased six Nooks to loan to our students through the library.  We are about to begin our program.  Students and their guardians sign a permission slip to borrow a Nook.  I'm wondering if anyone doing a similar program has run across any problems with damage to ereaders?  What do you do when a student breaks or loses a Nook/Kindle?  Are parents responsible to pay for the device?

Thanks for any information,

Joanna

[Marianna DeMott]

Joanna,

I've attached my Nook Need to Knows that I go over with students checking out a nook for the first time. They then sign our "Nook Book" a notebook with a statement that they've read the document before taking out a nook and know that they'll have to replace it. In fact we have had broken nooks and B & N has been wonderful about taking them back and replacing them with refurbished models. Now whenever I check out a nook I remind the students that the screens are very fragile and they need to be especially careful with them. We also found a work around that was a flaw in the case. Our home ec teacher made small pouches for the plug end that was putting pressure on the screen of the nook. I think if you do a search under my name you'll find a picture of the case and the pouch.  I think the case problem accounted for five of our six screen failures. Since making these changes and reminding students to be very careful with the devices we have not had any more problems. We've had two stolen, one from a student locker, the other from the media center.

Peg

[Sara Rhyne]

Just a note about Kindle damage. I work with students in an Early College setting and we have 44 kindles which students have been taking home for 3 weeks. We now have our 5^th Kindle with impact fractures on the screen. The screens look like a broken mirror or window. I have spoken with lots of folks at Amazon and the recommendation is that they not go into backpacks. They should be hand carried. They are all under warranty, but the principal is deciding how to handle these damages when they run out of warranty.