Mackin Educational Resources Becomes a Partner of INK THINK TANK.

On October 7, 2009, INK THINK TANK: Nonfiction Authors in Your Classroom launched a FREE, searchable database of hundreds of in-print books written by 22 award-winning I.N.K. authors. The database is designed to produce lists of books for every grade level covering content mandated by National Education Standards and state curricula. Instead of feeding kids material from bland, uninteresting books, INK offers a cornucopia of delicious, appetizing titles guaranteed to nourish both reading and learning. No single book can be all things to all students, but the LISTS of books generated by our database will come close. We believe that if kids learn through high-interest, well-researched books that have been vetted for accuracy, they will perform better on the required assessment tests.

Now our big news is that INK THINK TANK has formed a partnership with Mackin Educational Resources , a well-established educational distributor with 26 years in business. Their job will be to fulfill your book orders directly from the INK Database. Currently, if you want to buy a book from our database, we include a link to Amazon.com as a convenience. Each link produces a separate browser window and there is no way to build a shopping basket if you want to purchase all the books on a list produced by the database. This will all change when the Mackin/INK shopping basket goes live at the end of February. During this interim period, if you log in to use the database, you will be prompted to update your profile. This will please a lot of our out-of -the-country users who have told us that they can't register because there was no place to enter a foreign country. Now there is.

In addition, Mackin will be featuring INK THINK TANK in its promotional materials and catalogues. All of this will help focus attention on the best in children's nonfiction and will help get it where it can do the most good--classrooms.

Kitty and Randal Heise, the owners of Mackin sent us this welcoming message:

All of us a Mackin are very excited about our new partnership with the wonderful folks at INK THINK TANK. And what a wonderful partnership it will be as we are truly in concert with one another! As the owners of Mackin, Kitty and I would like everyone to know that our dedication to education has always been on the individual teacher level. We know how important it is for educators to have great resources and to know that they can count on us to assure their value and usability.

Our company mission ties right in with the thinking of the INK THINK TANK authors. We know that you and the rest of your group are dedicated to kids and learning and that your authors will do all they can to make a difference in a child's life. So as we kick off this wonderful adventure, we want you to know that we are really charged up with all that we can do and we can assure you that together we will make it happen at a higher level.

The link from the database list to the Mackin pages will give buyers the opportunity to read reviews and in-depth descriptions of each book's content. If you don't need that much information to make your decisions,you can simply make your purchase with the click of a mouse.

The genre of children's nonfiction is truly emerging from the shadows!