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(:toc#:) This page is the result of a workshop held with the National Library School Services group, held on 19 November 2003. The group took away an action point to develop a picture that will illustrate the future vision. Summary of key pointsWe want to improve the quality of information we provide to schools about their use of our products and services. The schools sector is under-resourced, professionally and technically, compared to the rest of the library community. The role of school libraries in advancing information literacy and e-literacy is not widely understood. There are opportunities for economies of scale in areas such as providing a national union catalogue of quality records. A learner-centred virtual library can provide students with access to a wide range of learning resources. We see a proof of concept in one region to deliver a web-based OPAC and virtual reference desk to a cluster of schools and homes. Our goal is for every school to have a library system that meets agreed standards. Current information-related problemsThere is a problem for us in accessing information about schools as customers for our services. We are working to raise the level of management information about what is going on in schools. We can get access to the Ministry’s authority file, which has a lot of basic school information, but we lack the same information about teachers and students. As services become more powerful, the need to have reliable information about our customers increases. The eKey initiative will be a great way to track service usage patterns that we can then turn into useful management information.
If I want to do something as simple as send an email to a particular teacher cluster, I have to go through a lot of screens to find out the email address of the group. In a lot of schools, the librarian doesn’t have an email address, or can’t open an email attachment. Even a lot of teachers don’t have regular access to their email, or are not proficient email users. The lack of a consistent base-level ICT infrastructure means sending paper through the mail is the most reliable method of communicating.
It would be interesting to compare our information with that gathered by organisations such as NZCER, but this is not practical at present.
There is a problem for school libraries in accessing our services and the wider information world. We currently provide information back to schools in print format. We really need this to be web-based, so the schools can drill down and compare their usage to that of others. This information would also be valuable to others, such as ERO and LIANZA. We have reasonable statistics on library spending, but again we only use this internally, although places like ERO would get value from it. We have collaborated with schools to get them access to electronic journals, but we don’t have a measure of how well this service is being used. Forcing people to log in is a real turn-off, so the eKey idea is a real opportunity to improve service and get better information about usage.
Lack of basic ICT infrastructure limits the ability of many schools to take full advantage of services like Discover and Papers Past. Many schools don’t have the skills to set up and maintain their own networks. Schools are very much the poor cousins to public and university libraries. So we do things like generate overdue notices electronically, then print them out and mail them. Lack of consistent infrastructure means we can’t offer a consistent e-service. This makes things administratively cumbersome at both ends. And learners get distracted when the technology doesn’t work right.
Many school libraries only have one computer, so the students can’t access the catalogue. Hence the library system is treated as a back-office inventory function, rather than as the entry point to the school’s knowledge resources.
School libraries aren’t run with the same level of professionalism as public and university libraries. School libraries are usually run as local cottage industries, often by a teacher with no library training on a 2 hour release. Schools would welcome some coordination from outside to give some economies of scale and raise the quality of service. The current situation raises major issues of equity. For many decile one schools, the library is the only place students could get access to the web — many of them don’t use the public library. But the school library staff don’t have the skills to support them.
School library catalogues are of variable quality — most create their own catalogue records and don’t have the skills to do a good job. We encourage them to buy records from SCIS (School Catalogue Information Service) in Australia, but they are reluctant to spend the money. This leads to inconsistent, poor quality records and duplication of effort. There is surely an opportunity to give schools easy access to low cost, good quality catalogue records. This would free up time that could be better spent supporting learning.
There is a lack of consistent standards across the sector and an inadequate understanding of why it matters. We need to facilitate professional development so that everyone has the minimum skill level and e-literacy needed.
Future information-related opportunitiesHelp schools to see the library and ICT as different parts of the same professional domain — the faculty of information services. Lots of schools are part way on the journey. We need to develop an agreed set of standards for systems in school libraries and an accreditation process to identify systems that comply. We need to bring everyone up to a good common standard. The end point is an integrated knowledge resource management system — the library catalogue includes all the school’s learning resources. The barrier is that some school library systems are tied into the student management system and the vendor has locked the schools in. They don’t interoperate and they don’t support open standards like MARC.
We can help support research-based learning by closing the gap between schools’ information resources and the internet. We see “my digital school library” where every student has her or his own personal library. A browser-based OPAC becomes the entry point for seamless access to physical and digital resources. However, schools need to recognize the level of effort that goes into a quality information service. The foundation is a national union catalogue for schools, to which they add their holdings and local learning resources.
Schools need to see evidence of how teachers and students are using the service and how my school compares with other schools. If it’s not visible, it’s not valued. We have to demonstrate the connection between libraries and literacy. The project to provide all-of-country access to e-journals (PERNA) will also raise schools’ information capability, at low cost.
Ensure all school libraries have reached a minimum standard of technical capability. We look to a future in which school libraries enjoy the same level of ICT service that other libraries take for granted. The network is reliable; the computers work all the time; people have the knowledge to use services effectively; and there is support available from my local cluster when things go wrong. Every school has access to an accredited library system that meets or exceeds a minimum standard, that requires a minimum of skill to operate. We need to help schools break out of the cycle where they get stuck on old and unsupported versions of software, or are locked into a proprietary system.
Many schools don’t have, and don’t want to have, the knowledge to make system decisions. They’d welcome some kind of subscription service, where all the problems get taken away. We imagine a browser-based, standards-compliant system in every school library, running on a standard server with remote diagnostics, with national provision of catalogue records, using the NSI number and eKey to identify student patrons. As a learner-centred library system, the OPAC is the gateway to the collection.
If all you need is a browser, the library computers can be very simple, low cost devices. And if one central or regional database can serve many schools, the technology in the school library becomes even simpler. Those schools that wish to will continue to run their own systems, but compliance with a common standard means there is one virtual collection.
Using the NSI number means we can give direct feedback to students on their patterns of usage and give summary statistics to the schools. Schools will be better able to tailor their library services to students’ learning needs.
Bring school libraries to the same level of professional service as public libraries. Can we take a cluster approach to raising capability and link public libraries more closely into schools? If we think of a school library as being linked to a virtual reference centre, we can free up the school librarians to work with the kids, while there is access to professional librarians for the bread and butter library management and support functions. However, to take advantage of the economies of scale this offers, we have to have the technical infrastructure in place. It makes no sense that many school libraries have to do their own book covering to save money. The cost savings from bulk book purchasing are significant.
This would give us a much better picture of equity issues that are currently hidden. The school librarian becomes more of a learning and literacy support role, facilitating students’ use of all the school’s information resources. They help teach students good information literacy practices — that you don’t just take the first thing you happen to find as “the answer” — students come to understand the process of critical search and retrieval of information.
We need to create a picture of the “learner-centred digital library” that networks the school library into the wider information community. We need to show the people, the processes and the technology working together in the school library to support the learner.
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