The Goodnight Memorial Library is proud to announce that we now have an early literacy station available for children up to 6 years old! It is located beside the catalog computers on the 2nd floor and is available during normal business hours. Here's what it looks like:


It's a system we purchased from AWE, Inc., a supplier of early learning & early literacy stations to the world, really, with systems going to all types of libraries and organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs and Head Starts.

The system is very kid-friendly, with a set of tiger-themed headphones,


a child-resistant keyboard, which should last a good amount of time due to the fact that there will be no drinks around (I hope!),



and a themable, easy-to-navigate interface for kids to play educational games:



In "testing" this product, I found that it really is kid-safe and appropriate for small children, with all facets of knowledge and concepts available to the young ones. Everything is included, from basic shapes, motor skills, colors and language development, to basic math, science, foreign languages (are there any, anymore?), and health and science, all taught by characters your kids already know! Learn Spanish and other subjects with Dora the Explorer, as well as Mercer Mayer's Little Critter and other popular characters! AWE even went so far as to reassure everyone that the content wasn't selected willy-nilly, as evidenced by the "Educator-selected content" header:


The theme-ability of this station is one thing that's good -- there's a default, cartoon-ish theme, a space theme, which you can see two pictures up, a princess theme and a jungle theme. Additionally, you can change the character and the language from English to Spanish, as shown in this picture:



We hope you are able to bring your young ones in to use this machine regularly -- we think they'll enjoy it and will learn something without even knowing it!

In order to ensure a bit of fairness for everyone, all sessions are limited to 30 minutes, and this station is only available on a first-come, first-served basis. There is no Internet access on this machine, so parents needn't worry about objectionable content coming in by mistake. We ask that parents please supervise their children while they are in the library using this machine, especially if they haven't had much exposure to computers. While it is made to be both child-friendly and child-resistant, these things won't last with lots of abuse.