Front Desk Fiction Non-Fiction Reference Professional Collection Audio / Visual Checkout Desk

Professional Collection

The Professional Collection side of the traditional Library was were the Librarians organized special collections of resources targeted at a select group of Library users. In a Secondary School Library, this was usually a collection of articles, books, videos and other resources aimed specifically at Secondary Teachers. There would be useful books on Literacy, or Math Education for example. Now, these books could be just kept in the regular, Non-Fiction section, but they would be all spread out, and very difficult to find and utilize. Because the audience for these specialized materials is smaller, then it makes sense to store these resources together, in a special collection, making it very easy to browse, select and use the resources.

With the Digital Library, the neccessity of collecting resources and grouping them physically dissappears completely, as there is no physical object to store, shelve and find. Everything is in the database, or on the net, so a collection can be created at anytime, anywhere by performing a simple search. Whenever we search online, using a search engine, we are creating a temporary professional collection of resources that we find and collect through downloading, bookmarks, emails and print-outs. It is the same when we search a Digital Library for all the resources that discuss Educational Technology; the server does a search of its catalogue and returns a list of all the resources it has matching those terms. We have now created a Professional Collection that only exists for us, and is deleted as soon as we browse away.

The Lighthouse


ARTIFACT:"The Lighthouse" an online learning moodle module exploring Information Literacy.

COURSE: ETEC 510

DATE: April 2010

ESSENTIAL LINKS:

 

This online learning module within the Moodle Learning Management System was done as a final group project for ETEC 510. We aimed to design an asset for classroom and distance learning educators to use in developing their student's information literacy. We have the students work though ice-breakers, an online group game, a series of activies, webquests and finally a series of online quizzes to guide and assess their development. Students are encouraged to work collaboratively throughout the module creating a Community of Practice, as explored by Wenger (2006).

The experience of creating this valuable artifact was a very good one. My group collaborated like professionals, each of us demonstrating strength in key areas, as we met, worked together, socialized and produced a fantastic project. We hope to share this resource with the rest of our peers, as a way to help achieve the goal of this ePorfolio, to ensure our students are skilled in the 21st century skillset, and are competent information managers.

As we look forward to the future of Libraries and their transition to Digital Libraries, there will be an essential role that will still offer much value and expertise to citizens and patrons of the Digital Library. Similiar to the way a Museum Curator works to find, evaluate, select, prepare and showcase essential artifacts from a collection, Cybrarians will serve a great role in sifting through and selecting the best digital artifacts. This will form useful and valuable digital collections to expose patrons to the best of the best. We all are too busy to spend vast amounts of time and energy searching and selecting resources and artifacts for our interests and lives, we need Cybrarians to light the way, similiar to the Lighthouse. Cybrarians have a unique skillset that allows them to stay abreast of new technologies, resources and collections that can then provide unique, small selections of only the best new assets. When we land on the homepage of a great Digital Library, there will most likely be a "whats new" or "special collection" area that will have ongoing showcases of digital resources we might never have found from our search input box.


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Aaron Mueller - 2010 Masters of Educational Technology @ UBC