Ask HN: Corporate sponsor for school library app experiment? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Corporate sponsor for school library app experiment?

1 pointm52go4 comments

Note: I'm not necessarily looking for financial sponsorship.

I've created an app to help inject curiosity back into the education system, which I personally think is one of the most urgent problems with the system today.

The app lets kids flip through a wide assortment of literature, poetry, art, science, math, film, music, and more from around the world and across time.

It's meant to live on a tablet placed in a central location in the library/media center, so kids can walk up to it and casually explore whenever they have free time.

For students, it's a refreshing change from typical school curricula, because they get to call the shots and explore what interests them.

For school libraries (average annual budget ~$8k!), a world of quality content is delivered to students in a fun way without costing anything or taking up shelf space.

We need a tablet, stand, and a couple of art supplies. I'm not necessarily looking for financial sponsorship (although that would be nice), but a loose partnership for branding purposes. Right now I'm just a random dude with an app.

You can see a demo here: http://canonofman.com.

Looks nice. A few things you may want to consider:

1. Going to the demo site, it really doesn't tell me much about what the app is, does, or what makes it special. Maybe I am missing something, but it's not clear what it is all about.

2. If I click on the "App" link in the top right, the page has three images of phone screens that all they say is "Preview Coming Soon".

3. Why only use this in a library? To me the app seems more appropriate to be installed on an individual's tablet/mobile device and let them explore on their own. Some schools are issuing tablets to students now, why not come up with a partnership with the school to have the app pre-installed on the tablet? That to me would seem the more logical approach. Maybe I am wrong, but I just can't imagine a student standing there in the library spending more than 30 seconds on the app.

Thanks for your feedback! Your considerations are all very appropriate.

1. The demo site is very bare-bones right now. I had something more informative when I was targeting consumers, but right now, I'm having 1-1 conversations to introduce folks to the idea so the extra context isn't necessary.

3. I agree. And people really liked the app itself in early tests. But they were clear they wouldn't pay (and that they wanted a native app). So I'm testing institutional appetite now, and libraries are best-aligned with its mission.

Your idea about school-issued tablets is awesome! That didn't even occur to me...I'll have to check that out.

No problem, hopefully it helps.

I think from an individual perspective, sales will be tough unless you can address the issue with website not being informative enough. Is it a game or is it just a graphical interface to Wikipedia? The way it is positioned on the site I have no idea, so buying would not be an option for me.

Selling to libraries, again is going to be tough, especially with budget constraints. I am much older than today's generation, but I can tell you this much, unless that tablet played a game that I could play with my friends, the chances of me running to the library just to browse around on it would have been slim. I also think you may run into some of the same issues as with the individual consumer in that it is not clear to me what it does.

Don't discount the power of a website to any market. Even if you are having 1-1 conversations, you still want them to leave the meeting and have a chance to go look at something just as informative, or even more informative. It is human nature to not always be paying 100% attention in meetings, so if they get sidetracked for even a second you want a place they can go and see the app. Maybe even have a demo of the app itself on the site.

My advice, instead of searching around for a sponsor for a tablet, stand, art supplies, I would find a couple history teachers at schools that utilize tablets. Give the teachers the app and get them to install it with their students. Sell them on this being a pilot program and you are looking for feedback. Teachers are going to be your best advocate. If the app is great, they are going to tell other teachers, which is hopefully going to turn into $$$ for you.

Great points. I'll add back some of my copy and content from the old site.

If libraries buy at all, it'd be sold as an antidote to shrinking budgets: the app would be a way to virtually expand shelves without the expense of paper books, ebooks or shelf space (every book has previews and full text links).

There's a lot of talk right now about libraries and their future in a digital world. I really think libraries will need some kind of a digital interface to browse collections in the future, as search boxes simply aren't enough--we don't always know exactly what we're looking for. I'm not alone in thinking this way. This particular app may not be the final solution to that problem, of course, but it's an attempt.

I understand kids won't flock to libraries just to use this app, but I can see it being a draw while they're already there, kind of like haphazardly browsing bookshelves was for the last generation.

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