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Learning and the digital library - Children and the Digital Library
Library Trends, Spring, 1997 by Delia Neuman
Abstract
The phrase "learning and the digital library" encompasses two distinct components: learning related to accessing, evaluating, and using the information resources available in this environment and learning related to mastering and building upon the ideas embodied within those individual resources. Educators and system designers must draw upon research, theory, and practice from fields concerned with both these components in order to help children achieve the maximum learning benefits afforded by the digital library. This article draws upon selected research from two such fields-information studies and instructional technology -- in order to present a range of ideas related to using the digital library as an environment for school-based learning. Although the two fields overlap, information studies provide insights primarily about the contextual and relational aspects of using the digital library, while instructional technology provides insights primarily about learning with the various media formats encompassed within this rich and complex venue. "Information literacy," an area that incorporates concepts from both areas, provides a useful overarching framework for considering the digital library as a learning environment.
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Introduction
There are few doubts about the potential of the digital library for providing unprecedented access to information and ideas. There are numerous doubts, however, about the potential of this rich and still-myterious venue for providing an optimal environment for learning. In fact. the very strengths of the digital library -- its limitless information, variety of formats, affordance of unconstrained navigation, and support for combining material in myriad ways -- are the sources of these uncertainties in formal learning environments. We know little enough about how to foster higher-level learning with "traditional" collections of print and nonprint materials. How, then, can we foster such learning in the vast and untracked terrain of the digital library?
Research in information studies traditionally focuses on accessing information rather than on learning from it, but the emergence of electronic information resources (EIRs) has been a catalyst for a range of work on the relationship of these resources specifically to learning. In addition, insights on learning and media accumulated by the field of instructional technology provide another important perspective on learning in electronic environments. Research and theory from both these fields suggest both caveats and opportunities related to children's prospects for learning in the digital library. Placing these insights within the larger context of "information literacy" provides a framework for understanding and addressing a variety of issues related to learning in this exciting new venue. The purpose of this article is to draw upon selected research and theory across this spectrum in order to present an array of insights about enhancing the potential of the digital library as an environment for higher-level learning in the school. Reflecting our current limited knowledge about this complex topic, the article is introductory rather than exhaustive and is intended to offer a starting point for further discussion and research.
The Digital Library as a Venue for Higher-Level Learning
Wozny's (1982) investigation of ninth-graders' use of online bibliographic databases in connection with an independent research project is one of the earliest studies in this field to draw attention to the potential of electronic information resources not just to help young learners access information but "to introduce students to a broader world of information" (p. 40) and to provide "a new opportunity for assisting students in developing search strategies" (p. 42). Ensuing years have seen a variety of other works designed to explore the broad relationship of EIRs to learning and particularly to the mastery of the concepts and skills required for conducting research (e.g., Aversa & Mancall, 1986; Callison & Daniels, 1988; Crane & Markowitz, 1994; Lathrop, 1989; Mancall, 1984; Neuman, 1993, 1995a, 1995b). Each of these works -- along with a variety of others -- has had a role to play in shedding light on the complexities of learning with and through EIRs. Today, that light might profitably be focused on learning and the digital library.
Mancall (1984), for example, noted the importance of teaching logic and critical thinking skills in order to help students use online databases profitably. Aversa and Mancall (1986) suggested that students should be taught online searching specifically so that they can become knowledgeable about information and about how to develop and refine their strategies for finding and using it. Callison and Daniels (1988), after working with forty-one juniors who searched for information on a variety of topics in a commercial EIR, noted that "the value of the online search experience for the high schooler" might well go beyond the acquisition of basic experience with using the technology to "the challenge to make information-use decisions based on facts, relevancy, recency, and authority" (p. 180). Lathrop's (1989) survey of seventy-three secondary-school librarians in nineteen states focused specifically on online information retrieval as a research tool and addressed (among other concerns) instructional objectives, student training, and curriculum uses. More recently, Crane and Markowitz (1994) detailed a three-level model for teaching critical thinking through online searching, while Neuman (1993, 1995a, 1995b) identified a number of curricular and instructional issues to be addressed in helping high-school students become competent and credible researchers with EIRs. All this work reveals a growing awareness that EIRs provide a critical venue for helping students learn concepts and skills that are essential in the information age -- abilities to access, evaluate, and use information to build knowledge, to think critically, and to solve problems. The digital library, which provides an even richer and more complex environment than the individual components investigated in these studies, offers an even more extensive venue for helping students develop these essential abilities.
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