Cyber Library

As a member of our school’s Action Planning and Technology teams I am proposing the creation of a Cyber Library. The readings and group project for EDLI 276 have me “stoked” to get it built and up and running. We are fortunate in that we have all the components in place to tackle this task fairly easily and inexpensively. Here is the information about Cyber Libraries I presented to our tech. team at our most recent meeting. Naturally the focus is the needs of our learning community as reflected in our Action Plan.

Cyber Library

Goals:
· To enhance web presence
· Reflect research, curriculum, and recreational needs of faculty, students, and community.
· Provide a link between community, school, and home.
o Resources supplement and enhance print collection.
o Generate positive publicity.
o Provide remote access.
o Attract students, grants, awards, and personnel.
· Inform, motivate and inspire students and families, faculty and staff, and community.
o Sites chosen to enhance learning and teach critical thinking skills.
· Improve information literacy skills.
· Provide research resources.

Cyber Libraries:
· Incorporate/employ new technologies to link many resources.
· Provide users with a learning and resource-rich environment.
o Library no longer just a collection of pre-selected books.
· Provide enhanced learning experiences.
o Finding information, completing assignments, performing research are all essential to future success in any endeavor.

Rationales:

Technological:
· Internet access at home :
o Enables maximum access to research
o Enhances ability to complete homework
o Provides informational and educational PR through weekly e-letters/bulletins home.

Economic:
· Links to thousands of curriculum-related sites without having to purchase, classify, catalog, circulate, retrieve, bind, or weed.
· Abundance of professionally reviewed sites.

Educational:
· Dedication to excellence and innovation compliment on-line learning.
· Search for information requires few skills and demands no specific knowledge or organizational schemes. (Perfect for what we know about our population and their need for recreation, and their organizational challenges.)
o Learning Goals:
§ Choose appropriate data base
§ Perform Boolean search
§ Design an internet search strategy
§ Evaluate web sites


Professional:
· Evolve and change the ways we place quality electronic information and content into our students’ (and community) hands.

Craver, Kathleen W.
Creating cyber libraries: an instructional guide for school library media specialists / Kathleen W. Craver.
p. cm.—(Libraries Unlimited professional guides in school librarianship series)
Includes bibliographical reference and index.
ISBN 0-313-32080-2 (alk. Paper)
Z675.S3 C758 2002
027.8—dc21

Valarie L. Clifford
F.H.G.S.
2007