Barnes & Noble are pushing to get their nook dual-screen ereader into schools, with the announcement of NOOKstudy. A new, free digital content management app, NOOKstudy promises to take ebooks, digital class materials, textbooks and notes, and keep everything packaged neatly in one place. The app doesn’t actually require a nook to be functional – though obviously B&N would rather you did buy one – since you can buy, download and read eTextbooks on the PC or Mac client itself.
That’s because it’s all tightly integrated with Barnes & Noble’s own ebook store, which currently has a claimed “over 1 million ebooks and etextbooks”. These can be tagged, highlighted and annotated, and then searched through at a later date; you can also view two pages (from two different ebooks) on-screen at any one time.
Currently NOOKstudy isn’t available to download; there’s only a sign-up form for more information once B&N push it out the door. That’s expected to happen in fall 2010, in time for the new academic year.