Article #1: Virtual researching...are we ready for this?

Church, Audrey (2006).  Your Library Goes Virtual: Promoting Reading and Supporting Research. Library Media Connection  Nov/Dec 2006.

In the article, Your Library Goes Virtual: Promoting Reading and Supporting Research, Audrey Church sets out to define the importance of a school library website for student use and student  researching.  Specifically, Church encourages teacher librarians to create and maintain an effective library website, but more generally, Church argues for the promotion of online research resources by teacher librarians who might be more inclined to always point students in the direction of the print reference section.    This article is part of a growing list of research that is encouraging school libraries to change their thinking about how we provide services to students, especially researching and information services.  As Church states, “ we must adapt our library sources and services to meet their needs” (Church, 2006). 

Church brings to light the reality that most students go online every day, and prefer  online researching resources  to the school library because they “consider the Internet to be easier to use, more convenient, open 24/7, and full of more up-to-date material”  (Church, 2006).   While it is easy to be suspicious of change and rely on more traditional researching methods, Church points out (quoting Joan Lippencott) that responding  to global change by adjusting library services, resources and functions  is nothing new.  Indeed, libraries have been “adjusting their collections, services, and environments to the digital world for at least 20 years” (Church, 2006).  In this way, we are urged to think of our school library as a changing environment, rather than a facility in which materials are housed. 

Church provides great and relevant examples for teacher librarians to consider.  In order to make a school library website the’ first stop’ for online student researchers, Church  emphasises – and describes -  the use of book blogs, virtual reference services like subscription-based EBSCO and Worldnbook online,  and curriculum-related web sites such as Net Trekker in order to meet student needs.  The school library website should be “the portal and scaffold to support research and promote reading” (Church, 2006).

Overall, Church is urging teacher Librarians to not try to promote their print reference section to compete with online researching opportunities, but rather to connect the physical library to these virtual services as one all-encompassing reference tool.  When students use these sources online, they should,  in fact, be regarding  these tools as pieces of a whole, as opposed to separate entities, one old and one new. 

To some teacher librarians, this article provides a list of wishful-thinking.  Most teacher librarians in public schools are far less than full time.  I work at a school of approximately 300 students and am allocated 0.4 FTE (2 days per week).  Within that time, I must provide book exchanges for all 13 divisions once a week, collaborate with classroom  teachers on projects, manage and administer the library and my library assistant’s tasks, review and purchase materials for the library...the list goes on and on.  Finding the time to create and effectively manage a well-used and attractive library website is difficult.   What I am grateful for is that our school district provides and maintains each school’s catalogue online, and our district library maintains a website with good links for staff and students.  However, am I doing enough to promote the use of these online  tools?  That is my challenge.  In the end, this article has given me much ‘food for thought’ about how to better integrate online researching tools into daily student work in our library.