{"id":23233,"date":"2020-05-10T12:01:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T16:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=23233"},"modified":"2020-05-09T08:27:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T12:27:11","slug":"free-to-download-childrens-ebooks-about-the-coronavirus-a-libguide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/free-to-download-childrens-ebooks-about-the-coronavirus-a-libguide\/","title":{"rendered":"Free-to-Download Children\u2019s eBooks About the Coronavirus: a Libguide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am used to looking for hard-to-find children\u2019s books, especially self-published ones. I\u2019ve been collecting self-published children\u2019s picture books on assisted reproductive technology since 2003. This is mostly an isolated topic and it was a hobby that began as the result of a reference question. I was asked if there were any children\u2019s books on the subject, and confident in my search skills, I said, \u201cI\u2019ll find out for you.\u201d It turned out not to be an easy topic and I was intrigued enough to dig further. After exhausting all traditional library databases like the <a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.loc.gov\/vwebv\/searchBrowse\">Library of Congress catalog<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/\">WorldCat<\/a>, I came up with just a few. The problem was that there were no proper LC subject headings, which meant I would have to resort to keyword searches and pedestrian forms of search like googling.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-23233 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-large'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/free-to-download-childrens-ebooks-about-the-coronavirus-a-libguide\/coronavirus-a-book-for-children\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"218\" height=\"218\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Coronavirus-A-Book-for-Children.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"Cover image of Coronavirus - A Book for Children\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Coronavirus-A-Book-for-Children.jpg 218w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Coronavirus-A-Book-for-Children-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Coronavirus-A-Book-for-Children-90x90.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 218px) 100vw, 218px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/free-to-download-childrens-ebooks-about-the-coronavirus-a-libguide\/doctor-li-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"359\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Doctor-Li-1-650x365.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"Cover image of Doctor Li\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Doctor-Li-1-650x365.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Doctor-Li-1-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Doctor-Li-1-768x431.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Doctor-Li-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Doctor-Li-1.jpg 780w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/free-to-download-childrens-ebooks-about-the-coronavirus-a-libguide\/alicia-y-coronavirus2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"505\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/alicia-y-coronavirus2.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"Cover image of Alicia y el coronavirus\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-23234\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/alicia-y-coronavirus2.png 505w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/alicia-y-coronavirus2-291x300.png 291w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/alicia-y-coronavirus2-485x500.png 485w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/alicia-y-coronavirus2-87x90.png 87w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-23234'>\n\t\t\t\tSource: https:\/\/www.la-libreria.net\/resources\/\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>I got good at Google searches for obscure, self-published children\u2019s picture books over the years and I now use Google regularly to find obscure, self-published children\u2019s books about other topics. So when the coronavirus pandemic began, I set out to see what was available, if anything, for children about the coronavirus. This turned out to be a relatively easy search. In early April, there was a post on the SLN listserv from librarian Adrian Thompson about a free-to-download eBook on the coronavirus called <a href=\"https:\/\/nosycrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Coronavirus_INSwith-cover.pdf\"><em>Coronavirus: A Book for children<\/em><\/a>, from Nosy Crow Press in the UK. I decided to share it with my listservs here in the US. (It has since been made available by <a href=\"https:\/\/wpg-assets.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/pdf\/coronavirus.pdf\">Candlewick Press<\/a> here in the States). Soon after, another librarian, Jen Maurer from the State Library of Oregon, shared two other books, <a href=\"https:\/\/interagencystandingcommittee.org\/system\/files\/2020-04\/My%20Hero%20is%20You%2C%20Storybook%20for%20Children%20on%20COVID-19.pdf\"><em>My Hero is You<\/em><\/a> by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, (a forum of UN and non-UN humanitarian partners) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.editorialflamboyant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Ebook_Alicia_y_el_coronavirus_ES.pdf\"><em>Alicia y el coronavirus<\/em><\/a> from the Flamboyant publisher in Spain. Because these were shared on the COSSLC listserv, I decided to share them on my NYC school librarians\u2019 listserv, NYCSLIST, as well as LM_NET, and ALSC. To look for more, I crafted a Google alert for them like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>(coronavirus OR COVID) (\u201cchildren\u2019s book\u201d OR \u201cpicture book\u201d OR story).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Not long after, I would receive almost daily results for articles in my inbox about children\u2019s books written by mothers, fathers, doctors, nurses, Ph.D.s, mental health experts, other experts in the field, writers, and illustrators. I continued to share them on NYCSLIST and other listservs until my supervisor, Melissa Jacobs, Director of the NYC School Library System, suggested I create a page on our <a href=\"http:\/\/nycdoe.libguides.com\/home\">libguides<\/a> for them. I did, as I had at that point found a critical mass of children\u2019s books on the topic. That was on Friday, April 24th, and on Monday, April 27th, I shared the list with my listservs. In the 12 days since I created the guide, we have had over 15,000 hits to the page and, for now, it is the most popular page on our libguide. It currently comes up third in the first 10 results of a Google search, and we were also contacted by the New York State Education Department to ask our permission to include our guide on their site.<\/p>\n<p>To date, I have discovered exactly 100 children\u2019s books on the coronavirus that are available free-to-download on the Web. That\u2019s a lot! Although most of them are in English, I have found many from Spanish-speaking countries, and then countries as far away as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, England, Spain, Mexico, and The Philippines. They are also available in languages from Afrikaans to Farsi, Turkish, Spanish, French, Italian, and German to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Xhosa, and Zulu, among many others.<\/p>\n<p>You can find a curated list of all of these books available on the New York City School Library System\u2019s page here: <a href=\"https:\/\/nycdoe.libguides.com\/COVID-19ebooks\/free\">https:\/\/nycdoe.libguides.com\/COVID-19ebooks\/free<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Today&#8217;s guest blogger is <strong>Patricia Sarles. <\/strong>Patricia is passionate about libraries and doing research. She maintains the <a href=\"http:\/\/booksfordonoroffspring.blogspot.com\/\">Books for Donor Offspring blog<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/yabooksfordonoroffspring.blogspot.com\/\">YA Books for Donor Offspring blog<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/booksforkidsingayfamilies.blogspot.com\/\">Books for Kids in Gay Families blog<\/a>. She has been an academic librarian, a medical librarian, a public librarian, and a school librarian for the past 30 years and is now a coordinator of library services for the New York City School Library System. She holds master\u2019s degrees in both anthropology and library science. She can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:psarles@schools.nyc.gov\">psarles@schools.nyc.gov<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><i>If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:alscblog@gmail.com\">alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>This post addresses the following ALSC Core Competency: Knowledge, Curation, and Management of Materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am used to looking for hard-to-find children\u2019s books, especially self-published ones. I\u2019ve been collecting self-published children\u2019s picture books on assisted reproductive technology since 2003. This is mostly an isolated topic and it was a hobby that began as the result of a reference question. I was asked if there were any children\u2019s books on the subject, and confident in my search skills, I said, \u201cI\u2019ll find out for you.\u201d It turned out not to be an easy topic and I was intrigued enough to dig further. After exhausting all traditional library databases like the Library of Congress catalog and WorldCat, I came up with just a few. The problem was that there were no proper LC subject headings, which meant I would have to resort to keyword searches and pedestrian forms of search like googling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[210,47,1604,208,134,1614,1972],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-collection-development","category-competencies-for-librarians-serving-children-in-public-libraries","category-ereaders-and-ebooks","category-guest-blogger","category-knowledge-curation-and-management-of-materials","category-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}