Scenario No.2
Brandon realizes that his biology research project on genetics is due tomorrow. It is Sunday evening, 6 p.m. No problem! He logs on to the Internet, opens his Web browser, goes to his school library Web site, and clicks on the pathfinder created collaboratively by his library media specialist and classroom teacher. Using their suggestions, he finds basic information in an encyclopedia through Grolier Online, and journal articles and newsletters from the SIRS Knowledge Source and Infotrac Student Edition. Through the library’s online catalog, he reads portions of a few Follett e-books on genetics. To finish off his research, he visits a couple of the Web sites suggested in the pathfinder. Works cited? Referring to the works cited section of the school library Web site, he soon has his references listed in complete MLA format

-excerpt from Audrey P Church (2005, March). virtual SCHOOL LIBRARIES-THE TIME IS NOW! MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 12(2), 8-12. Retrieved October 19, 2008, from ProQuest Education Journals database. (Document ID: 809417421).

In relating “the tale of two Brandons,” Audrey Church clearly demonstrates the importance of providing today’s learners with round-the-clock access to “quality resources and instruction in how to use these resources virtually” (Church, 2005). School libraries are evolving to extend their services beyond the parameters of their physical space and hours of operation, enabling students to access resources at any time, from anywhere.

With so many information choices available today, it is easy for students and staff to become overwhelmed by all the Internet has to offer. As the “information landscape” continues to expand, school library patrons are looking for solutions “to bring order to this glut of information” (Valenza, 2005). In “Find your path! Making research easy with virtual libraries,” Joyce Valenza argues that although young learners are often granted “near-guru status” when it comes to using new technologies, research suggests that these “learners often misunderstand the ways in which information is organized.” Valenza goes on to add that “learners need strategies to help guide them through the complicated, often overwhelming processes of accessing and using information.”

According to Joyce Valenza, if students are to be “effective seekers and users of information,” they need guidance and instructional support in each of the following:

1. information skills critical for the 21st century
2. customized, appropriate, and well-designed online learning environments

Enter… the new virtual library for 21st century learners!

What is a virtual library?

In the 21st century, a school library can create a productive learning environment in either a physical and a virtual space. Together, both physical and virtual libraries support teaching and learning, while each serves a unique purpose and addresses different client needs.

In “Virtual libraries supporting student learning,” Holly Gunn describes a virtual library as an “organized collection of digital information.” In addition to information in both audio and video formats, a virtual library collection may include online books, journals and articles available from databases or on the Internet. According to T. Saracevic, in the article “Digital library evaluation: toward an evolution of concepts,” virtual libraries are constructed “for a particular community of users, and they are designed to support the information needs of that community.” Joyce Valenza also refers to virtual libraries as “rich multi-page sites” that “customize the Web for particular groups of students” (Valenza, 2005).

Virtual school libraries are providing information to today’s techno-savvy learners “where they live, play, and work” (Valenza, 2005), twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to providing unlimited access to patrons, virtual school libraries tend to be most effective when both classroom teachers and teacher librarians collaborate and provide instruction in information literacy from within an online environment.

Characteristics of a virtual library

In visiting and evaluating a variety of virtual libraries this week (both school and public), many common characteristics can be identified, even though each one serves a unique learning community.

Perhaps the best known virtual library environment is that of “information goddess,” Joyce Valenza at Springfield Township High School. The library homepage “uses the physical library” as a metaphor to organize Web resources (Valenza, 2005). The visual representation replicates the physical library environment and each active link is illustrated in an appropriate manner. For example, catalogs and databases, online lessons and pathfinders, links for students and teachers, and email are all labelled near or on the computer bank (where they would be accessed from in a physical library). Joyce Valenza has created a comprehensive collection of online resources that provide students with instructional support both at school and at home. No wonder the Springfield Township High School Virtual Library is just as active after hours, as it is during school hours.

Virtual libraries need to be well organized for easy navigation by both students and staff. Tables and sidebars can provide users with a quick, at-a-glance overview of what resources are available. The virtual library at Miles MacDonnell Collegiate uses a simple T-chart layout to promote both the online catalogues and resources available to students. Virtual libraries are the best way to highlight electronic databases that the school subscribes to on an annual basis. Citation help and links for class projects are readily accessible to students as they require support in completing their assignments.

The Parkcrest Library Media Centre includes links to the school’s growth plans as part of its virtual library. In this case, the virtual library provides a public venue for sharing the school’s goals with students, teachers, parents and the community. For further investigation, appropriate links are provided for each of the goals.

The Bairdmore Virtual School Library creates easy access for students in a Kindergarten to Grade 6 school by using both text and colourful icons as information guides. Despite their tendency to feature online resources like databases and electronic journals, virtual libraries can actually lead students back to reading offline. The Bairdmore Library does just that by providing a list of the Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award nominees and the “Top 100 Kid’s Books” that will encourage students to seek out fiction materials in the physical library. Other examples might include summer reading lists selected by public libraries or other reading recommendations such as teacher or peer picks and favorite read alouds.

The Grandview Virtual Library is a colourful, fun and very user-friendly site. The clever layout makes class projects, research tools, blogs and wikis easy to access. In navigating the site, the message that classroom teachers and the teacher-librarian work collaboratively as instructional partners is very clear. The teacher-librarian’s site includes instructional lesson plans, a research calendar and a collaborative mapping template to use when planning with classroom teachers. In addition to posting lesson plans, virtual libraries may also post teacher-created online tools for students to use such as rubrics, handouts, organizers, and WebQuests.

The Library Support Services at the Winnipeg School Division creates “do-it-yourself research guides” called pathfinders as part of their virtual library. Teacher-librarians build pathfinders that are usually customized to meet the needs of a particular group of students, doing a particular project. Pathfinders make information more accessible to students and teachers, because they weed through all the available resources and link students to quality resources recommended by their teachers and teacher-librarians. A pathfinder might provide key words, definitions of key concepts, call numbers for reference books, articles in print magazines, best web sites, or even email addresses to experts in the field of study (Valenza, 2005). Students can also be encouraged to create their own pathfinders to guide their research. On the her virtual library site, Joyce Valenza provides students with a template to create their own pathfinders.

A favorite example of a public virtual library is the Regina Public Library, in Regina, Saskatchewan. The layout is clean and well mapped out using both visuals (photographs and icons), as well as text to direct the patron. Like many virtual libraries, this one provides an email link under “Ask a Librarian,” for direct, personal service online. Although more common in public libraries than school libraries, this virtual service is modelled after the traditional reference desk in physical library environments.

Advantages of a virtual library

In “The virtual library,” by Joyce Valenza, the author states that “today’s school library must meet [student] needs as both a physical and virtual space. However, virtual libraries do provide new opportunities for student learning that a physical space can not replicate:

• Access (virtual libraries do not have designated hours of operation and are available any time, from anywhere, serve many users simultaneously)
• Customized learning resources (resources are selected for specific assignments and a variety of different learning styles)
• Collection development (resources are always current and more up-to-date, no lost materials)
• Web 2.0 environment (opportunities for users to become authors and publishers of information)
• Local curriculum (include locally produced resources, histories and photographs)
• Equity for all users (increased access for the visually impaired, the mobility challenged and patrons living in remote locations)

Disadvantages of a virtual library

• Connectivity (inaccessible without an Internet connection)
• Lack of information literacy skills (students who have not developed the necessary information skills, such as effective search techniques, may flounder in the virtual environment)
• Lack of professional instruction (without a teacher-librarian to provide scaffolding and quality resources, a virtual library is difficult to navigate)
• Storage of digital information (issue of long term storage and permanency of digital information)

-based on Holly Gunn (2002). Virtual libraries supporting student learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 8(2), 27-37. Retrieved October 19, 2008, from ProQuest Education Journals database. (Document ID: 355802891).

Further implications for teaching and learning

In the article “The real and the virtual: intersecting communities at the library,” technology education librarian, Kelly Czarnecki, ponders the responsibility of a library “to build community.” She views the potential of virtual libraries “to see the community grow as a result of what you’re doing with library services to create new groups of people and new ways to share and discover information.” Czarnecki muses on the intersection of physical and virtual library spaces when she suggests that libraries consider attracting teen patrons to participate in virtual collaborative projects while at the public library. To take this idea one step further, we might begin to see student-created content becoming part of the virtual library collection on a regular basis.

In terms of teaching and learning within the school library program, teacher-librarians can effectively model an inquiry-based research process (Focus on inquiry, Big6, Guided Inquiry, I-Search, Integration Station), within a virtual library space. By providing an online scaffold for the instruction of information skills at each phase of the student’s query, teacher-librarians can guide student research after hours. Virtual libraries can include ideas for research topics, techniques for generating essential questions, advice on selecting resources, strategies for note-making, information on citing sources, and tips on avoiding plagiarism.

Whether using a resource in a physical or online in a virtual library, students still need to be able to evaluate the quality of information they use, for both relevance and accurracy. In the article “Helping students use virtual libraries effectively,” authors Mary Ann Fitzgerald and Chad Galloway state that “although the quality of information found within a virtual library is certain to be generally much higher than that of the open Internet, it is still absolutely necessary that students exercise critical thinking in choosing between resources and in applying the information they find.” Students will still need to be critical of articles retrieved from databases in terms of bias and currency.

In “Digital libraries in education: promises, challenges, and issues,” Marchionini and Maurer suggest that in customizing resources for a specific group of learners, virtual libraries could, in effect, extend access to “create global communities of learners” studying a similar subject. It’s an interesting premise that definitely has Web 2.0 overtones.

Reflections

Virtual libraries can elevate the work of the school library and the teacher-librarian in powerful, new ways. I can see that the static library web pages that we once built, are no longer relevant to our 21st century learners. With Sharepoint and Gateway becoming our avenues for creating library web pages in our division, I hope that our school libraries can build interactive virtual learning libraries that support both instruction and learning on a fresh, new level.

As I navigate through the Springfield Township High School’s virtual library, I am both overwhelmed and in awe of the information that has been made available for use online. In reading the conclusion to “The virtual library,” by Joyce Valenza, I am reminded of the power of both the physical and virtual library spaces working in tandem when she states that “when people say that Springfield Township’s library is the heart and the brain of the school, they are also referring to its virtual counterpart.”

-katkin