Is listening to audio a useful piece of literacy education? Does it help students become better readers? Or is it simply a more passive way to consume content, a shortcut that eliminates the work and thus the intellectual exercise and reward of reading? Unsurprisingly, there is a wealth of available research that looks into this very question. Perhaps more surprisingly, it turns out that listening to stories builds literacy skills in most of the same ways reading them does.

School libraries are an invaluable resource to students and teachers alike, providing access to a universe of print and digital media and teaching students how to consume and use information responsibly. For all the good that libraries do in their schools, they are often chronically underfunded. Enter into the equation a new trend: crowdsourcing.