NEWS RELEASES > MAY 17, 2017
BALTIMORE, MD — Follett today announced it has entered into a partnership with Unbound Concepts and its flagship platform, Artifact, which helps districts, teachers, librarians, and curriculum buyers discover the best content for their students. Artifact catalogs the topics, themes, concepts, educational objectives, and literary elements in content — all of which can now be found as enhanced metadata tags within Titlewave®, Follett’s powerful collection development and curriculum support tool.
According to Katie Palencsar, CEO/Founder of Unbound Concepts, the Artifact platform’s metadata tags are pulled from a fixed set of more than 700 terms that describe content, encompassing topics, themes, and literary and educational elements.
“Each tag includes descriptive information and a text snippet showing how the concept appears in the text,” Palencsar said. “Artifact supports a common language between teachers and librarians, which empowers stakeholders to work together to recommend the right books for a curriculum, classroom, or student. Plus, it allows publishers to highlight, through search and discovery, critical elements in their text to better sell into schools and libraries.”
Nader Qaimari, President for Follett School Solutions, said the partnership is a first step toward developing universal meta-tagging for K-12 instructional content incorporation, and added the use of Artifact in Titlewave® will provide educators the opportunity to curate titles and lists based on specific topics, themes, and curriculum elements.
“Artifact provides assurance that targeted curriculum elements exist in the texts purchased and assigned to classrooms,” Qaimari said.“Artifact also provides a way to develop collections around a district’s scope and sequence. This partnership will allow us to provide evidence-based curation, meaning when a teacher or librarian assigns a particular text—print or digital— it supports exactly what a student needs and aligns to their instructional objective.”
Each Artifact includes three key items: 1) an artifact type, which is selected from Unbound Concepts’ taxonomy; 2) a rationale, which is written by a teacher and shows how and why the artifact is in the text; and 3) a quotation from the text to provide direct evidence.
Unbound Concepts partners with a variety of book distributors and publishers, including Baker & Taylor, which Follett acquired more than a year ago.
November 21, 2024
MCHENRY, Ill. & TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 21, 2024 — Despite the widespread destruction and heartache unleashed by the one-two punch of hurricanes Helene and Milton, Florida communities — such as those in Hillsborough County — are trying to return to a...
Read more
November 18, 2024
TAMPA, Nov. 18, 2024 — In an effort to rebuild students’ home libraries lost in the floods, Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) is inviting community members, businesses, and organizations to participate in a virtual book drive that opened this week and runs...
Read more
Author, Educator Tackle How to Develop a Love of Reading in Students
September 24, 2024
MCHENRY, Sept. 24, 2024 — A leading children’s author and an acclaimed local educator will headline “2024 Educator Night,” presented by Follett Content, which will shine a spotlight on how to instill a love of reading in today’s students.The event, open to...
Read more
Follett Content 'Educator Book Sale' to Back Dolly Parton Imagination Library
September 19, 2024
MCHENRY, Sept. 19, 2024 — Follett Content will hold an ‘Educator Book Sale’ on Saturday, Sept. 28 with proceeds supporting the Dolly Parton Imagination Library (DPIL) – United Way of Greater McHenry County Chapter. The book sale, being held in...
Read more
Chicagoland Students Receive Back-to-School Gift of New Backpack, Supplies
August 27, 2024
MCHENRY, Aug. 27, 2024 — For Chicagoland elementary school students, the start of a new school year also came with something else: A brand-new backpack, chockful of supplies, courtesy of Communities That Care (CTC) via donations from McHenry’s Follett Content. CTC is a...
Read more
Follett Book eFairs Registration Now Open for PreK-8 Schools in U.S.
July 10, 2024
MCHENRY, Ill., July 10, 2024 — Educators may now schedule dates for Follett Book eFairs, which it was announced last month are returning after debuting four years ago. The new iteration of online book fairs, available to all PreK-8 schools in...
Read more