School+Library+Websites

=Dr. Joyce Valenza= //Librarian, Springfield Township High School Library, Erdenheim, PA//

School Library Websites: State of the Art Information Landscapes for 21st Century Learners
THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL: If school libraries and librarians are to be relevant in the 21st century they must have a school library website, aka knowledge management tool. So began [|Dr. Valenza]’s whirlwind tour of the why, how, and what of school library websites, all of which is founded on her extensive research and practical experience from maintaining her own award-winning [|high school library] webpage.

Dr. Valenza said a school library’s webpage should be its most often used front door. It should be there late at night when most students are working on their papers. It should be the first place they go when they start a research project. It should fit the personality of their school yet it does not have to be created from scratch. She encourages others to use her research to include the features and links already found to be most useful by other libraries. If they cannot create a site with all the bells and whistles, she urges them to start with the ten things their school community needs most. If they do not have a school website in which to put it, she recommends they use a wiki, [|blog], or even social software.

Some of the questions that informed her research were:
 * Will the teens I touch become effective users of ideas and information?
 * What impact might online guidance and instruction have on learners as they interact with information?
 * How do librarians and libraries remain relevant to learners who work independently, to one-to-one schools?
 * How do we meet the learning needs of a generation of users who seek information, learn, play, and communicate online?

For her research, she had a [|Delphi panel] of 22 experts identify secondary library websites demonstrating exemplary practice. Of the 74 identified, the list was narrowed down to the 10 most effective sites to study. From there they came up with a list of common features (the WHAT) and common organizational structures or characteristics (the HOW).

Dr. Valenza surveyed her own students about the features they liked and disliked about their Springfield library website and asked them how to improve and add to what was there. She was surprised to learn that how it looked was very important to them. They wanted it to be “prettier.”

She began her research because there were no good models of school library website practice. Out of that research she created a 21st Century Libraries wiki. It is a road map with everything a librarian will need to know to begin creating their own 21st century library website. We urge you to go there because in this short summary we cannot possibly do justice to the exemplary resources and organization it contains.

The information landscape is a mess. Students and teachers need help navigating it and the evaluating content they find there. Multimedia plays a large part in the effectiveness of any school website because it is the language most often used by the millennial generation. Joyce has infused a whole new dynamic into her library practice and website by promoting and including multimedia resources created by her students. SAT vocabulary podcasts, book trailer videos, wikis, information fluency videos, video blogs, and grammar videos are just a glimpse of all her website has and will contain.

In addition to the 21st Century Libraries wiki and her [|website] you are welcome to peruse Dr. Valenza’s [|School Library Websites: State of the Art Information Landscapes for 21st Century Learners] powerpoint. It contains 214 pages of ideas, links, and examples.

Joyce said her dream is to be a small window on the desktop of her students offering “just-in-time, just-for-me support and intervention” even in the wee hours when they need it most—in other words, to own a small slice of her students’ desktop real estate.