{"id":64,"date":"2013-07-11T21:56:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T04:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/?p=64"},"modified":"2013-07-11T21:56:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T04:56:51","slug":"digital-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/2013\/07\/11\/digital-libraries\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of “world libraries” I’d like to think of them as digital libraries, since the content is digital. \u00a0The amazing thing about digital content is that it can be shared around the world much more easily than a physical book, photograph, or document.<\/p>\n

My group for the discussions this afternoon was the elementary school librarians. \u00a0We talked about the importance of local community libraries with physical books, how it gives people a place to connect and to have the sensory experience of holding and reading books. \u00a0We also talked about how popular internet access is at many libraries we have seen, so there is the potential to blend physical libraries with digital libraries. \u00a0We also talked about the importance of having online access in libraries for those students who don’t have online access at home. \u00a0One advantage of digital content over physical books, is the ability to show information in a multitude of ways. \u00a0Digital libraries could include text, images, scans of primary source documents, videos, audio recordings, etc. \u00a0I also argued the point that a digital library could increase access for some people. \u00a0Petra brought up the example of how popular the large print books are with seniors in the Qualicum Public Library. \u00a0I pointed out that if they had e-readers (which I know many seniors do not) they could have access to more books, because they could increase the font of any e-book.<\/p>\n

I found an article written by Connie Champlin and David Loertscher entitled “Creating a Digital Age School Library<\/a>” which had several of the topics we touched on in our inquiry group discussion. \u00a0The authors argue that a digital library needs to have access to electronic databases, because this information has been edited and verified, unlike so much of what is on the internet. \u00a0We talked a bit about the struggles of finding articles at the appropriate reading level with databases, and how information books often have to help fill in the gaps. Champlin and Loertscher also say a digital library should have links to good sites on topics classes are learning about. \u00a0We talked about the struggle of finding reliable information at an appropriate level for students, and how to organize that information when we do find it. \u00a0The article also explained the role of library media specialist as information coach, and we talked quite a bit about how it is our job to teach students to evaluate the information they find online.<\/p>\n

One point the authors made that I am still wondering about is “Access to the print and multimedia\u00a0collection of the LMC catalog from\u00a0the classroom or the home.” \u00a0Does that mean all books should be scanned and a copy stored online? \u00a0Does that mean the catalogue is accessible from anywhere so students can source what they want and come find it in the library later? \u00a0If they mean the former, I’m thinking there would be a lot of cost involved in having both a physical copy of a book and the digital copy. \u00a0Is it really the best use of our financial resources to duplicate what we have? \u00a0Wouldn’t it be a better use of money to buy some things in hard copy, and others in digital?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of “world libraries” I’d like to think of them as digital libraries, since the content is digital. \u00a0The amazing thing about digital content is that it can be shared around the world much more easily than a physical book, photograph, or document. My group for the discussions this afternoon was the elementary school librarians. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4067],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assignment-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/collinsamy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}