Books, e-Books & Audiobooks
An important goal of a school library is to encourage and to provide opportunities to read widely and to use multiple kinds of media for, "information, personal interest, and lifelong learning" (Model School Library Standards). To support this goal Portola High School's Learning Commons houses about 4,700 physical books on its shelves, and several thousands more online.
Books are available through Portola's Learning Commons in three formats as listed below.
Library books that are on the shelves
These are the books you think of when you picture a library with multiple shelves for you to look through. We have Fiction, Non Fiction, Manga, Graphic Novels, Biographies, and more! When you find a book you want to read, then you may check it out with a librarian at the Circulation Desk. Each book may be borrowed for three weeks, and its due date will be stamped within the front cover to help you remember when to return it.
You may use the Destiny Discover app to find which books we have on the shelves, and whether they are available for checkout. If you would like to login and to place a book on hold, then you may find directions in this tutorial.
Please see here for a guide to current checkouts & fines.
Search for books below at Destiny Discover!
digital / electronic / e-books available online
Digital books are called a few different things, such as electronic books (or e-books for short) and online books. They all mean the same thing and are fantastic for accessing from home and after hours. In other words, e-books are available 24/7 and can be read on your school laptop, or mobile device.
SORA
Sora is the most user friendly app for e-books. If someone else is reading a book on here, you have to wait for them to finish before you can access and read the book. This also has audiobooks and can connect to the Orange County Public Library so you have even more books available to choose from.
MACKIN VIA
Mackin VIA has content similar to Sora, but looks different when navigating through. It links to ComicsPlus as well. Mackin VIA does not have audiobooks.
COMICS PLUS
COMICS PLUS is amazing! It has over 25,000 digital comics, manga and graphic novels. Multiple people can be reading the same book at the same time on this app, so you'll never have to wait to read! See here to learn more about the benefits of reading graphic novels.
PROQUEST
Unlike the other e-book apps that have predominately fiction, ProQuest has non-fiction only. So it is a great place to find books on topics like history.
audiobooks
Yes audiobooks are available in Sora above, but they are technically available through other apps as well--you just need to know how to adjust your settings. So the most straightforward place to access traditional audiobooks is through Sora, but if you want to turn on the "read aloud" feature in other apps, then you can have text read out loud in ProQuest (not Culture Grams), Britannica School, and NatGeo KIDS. See here for a tutorial of how to adjust an apps settings to read aloud.
REQUEST FOR A NEW BOOK
Is there a book that you want to read, but don't see in any of the apps above? Let us know which title it is by filling out this form (only accessible to IUSD staff and students).