Why your library's digital resources go unused and a golden opportunity

While digital resources are a growing part of many if not most school library collections, the amount of use they get is often disappointing. At least in the districts in which I have worked. Most products have a some sort of usage meter so it's pretty easy to determine how often they are accessed.

Why does this seem to be the case even after almost 30 years of availability? (Anyone else remember the Groliers on a stand alone workstation in the late '80s?) A few reasons come to mind...

1. Out of sight, out of mind. Unlike print materials that are easily visible to anyone walking into the library, the digital resources are hidden - too often deep with the library's website, which is hidden deep within the school website.
2. Difficult to promote. Those lively new picture books or high interest non-fiction titles are easy to showcase in displays. While it's possible to show digital materials on library monitors, it simply feels like more work.
3. Low comfort level by staff. Many adults still do know about nor feel comfortable using digital resources. How many teachers in your school still require "at least one print reference" in their research assignments? Digital = dubious quality still in many an educator's mind.
4. Inadequate access to technology. You don't need a device to use print. But e-books and databases require both hardware and an Internet connection (and often a password). If your school is student device poor and you have a high percentage of kids without home Internet access, this is a big, big deal.
5. Free, popular digital options. Hey, why go to all the trouble of logging into World Book or Britannica when Wikipedia just sort of pops up in Google Search? Why log in to Discovery Streaming when there's YouTube? Yes, we information professionals know why, but do your staff and students care?
6. Slow change in assessments. Your state still require kids know how to use guide words in a print dictionary? 'Nuff, said.
7. Generic, not targeted. Good print collections are built around curricular needs. Is this currently the case when you are selecting digital materials as well?

Our district's library media specialists met last week and we talked a lot about how to purposely build our collection of electronic resources to meet specific course needs. We may not be able to do a lot about the first six challenges in the list above, but we can make a conscientious effort to target the curation of all our resources, print and digital, to meet content standards and course requirements.

The growing use of our learning management system, Schoology, makes this an opportune time to work with teachers to select content-specific digital resources. The LMS, after all, it more or less a container, and containers need content.

Feels like a golden opportunity to build relevance and relationships.

Comments

[Tim Staal]

Thanks for the challenge, Doug. I think your last sentence has a reason embedded too - Too often our clients, students and teacher don;t see the relevance of digital resources and have trouble "relating" to them in the same way they do with books. Many of my students didn't want to read a book in digital format - something about the relationship with the print copy.

Thanks!
Tim

[Barbara Paciotti]

I quickly learned NOT to introduce all online services at a single library visit or faculty meeting—if it isn't relevant to classroom learning, it's meaningless and quickly forgotten. Imagine the confusion for students and teachers, seeing names of online resources listed down a webpage, trying to determine which to use for their information need. It's up to me, the school librarian, to know when and with whom to use each feature of each resource.

I created specific "WebQuest" lessons for particular subject assignments that featured 3 different online resources to support the assignment. Why 3? Because it fits easily into the time-frame of a single class period, I can introduce a couple features of each resource, and limiting options is more productive for a very specific information need.

One resource is always a grade-appropriate encyclopedia and the other 2 are subject- or type-specific databases.For example, for a Social Studies WebQuest I used World Book Encyclopedia, Culturegrams, and Maps101.

Teachers like the WebQuest single-sheet format that is the daily grade (although moving them to an online form like Zoho or Google Docs would make everything online!) and students learn from the focused approach of a WebQuest.

The secret to implementing this is to create the WebQuest sheet first and then show it to teachers a couple weeks beforehand, so they can see how it works for their class activity or assignment. After doing this a few times, teachers began coming to me to see if I'd create another one!

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Tim,

The slow adoption of digital resources has really taken me by surprise, I guess. I personally read and research and consult reference almost totally in electronic formats. ​But then as a technology director and library supervisor, I have more exposure and time (and intrinsic interest) in these formats. But I do believe the shift is slow, not non-existant.

Doug​

Hi Barbara,

I love your proactive and pragmatic approach. I hope you find ways to share this idea (write for a school library magazine?)

Really appreciate the comment. Thank you,

Doug​

[Kenn Gorman]

If it's not graded, it won't be used -

I have no doubt that the resources available with our librarian are significantly better than a simple search - but I know most students don't use them unless a teacher specifically requires and counts their use towards the final grade.

I think we need to change the "five internet sources" to specific databases or specific web sites.

[Eric]

I don't think the premise of this post is giving the teachers/instructional staff and students nearly enough credit.
Could it be that these digital resources simply aren't the of the same quality as the print resources?
Or maybe teachers in your buildings are more cautious about the use of digital resources. Do you blame them for waiting for some the longitudinal studies to offer some evidence of the effectiveness of e-resources as compared to print resources?
Just because Bill Gates and the tech companies keep telling everyone that digital resources are effective doesn't make it so. I wouldn't want my doctor determining treatment based on the motives of those with the most to gain. Why should we expect teachers to do the same?

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Eric,

My experience is that most digital resources, especially those by companies that also publish materials in print form, are as good if not better than their print counterparts. They are often updated in real time and have value-added features like search, clickable definitions and pronunciations, links to additional resource etc. But I would agree there is always the possibility of electronic junk too!

Thanks for the comment,

Doug

[Lynn]

Barbara,

Would you want to share your WebQuest lessons with a fellow school librarian? I'd love to get into the classrooms more often and those WebQuests sound like a great idea!