E-LEARNING

Library Administrator's Digest, Mar 2004 by Robinson, Charles W

I'm no expert in the field, but it doesn't appear that the practice of e-learning has gotten any more off the ground than e-books. But maybe that's about to change.

I read recently that Drexel University in Philadelphia offers the MLS completely off site through e-learning, presumably with interaction with faculty, although I wonder whether with other students. I don't know if e-learning is widely spread through the commercial sector, but if so, I haven't read much about it in the general magazines.

At the PLA conference in Seattle recently I heard of an ambitious project by the Public Library Association into e-learning, starting off with its first offering, "Creating Policies for Results", the same subject covered recently in book form by Sandra Nelson and June Garcia in Creating Policies for Results - from Chaos to Clarity. Sandra is a world-class trainer with tons of experience, and June was a respected library administrator, now a consultant who has worked with lots of public libraries.

But in order to be useful, e-learning has to be much more than just putting the text of a book up on your computer screen. That would be really boring and cause eyestrain to boot.

PLA's new project has avoided that, if the demos I've seen are any indication. They are interactive, giving you choices and the results of those choices. Additionally, if you take the course, you get to interact with the authors, as well as others in the course.

The course is similar, but probably better, than what you might get from a two-day pre-conference, and costs $395 for PLA members. A lot cheaper than a preconference with travel and hotel.

And the subject is one that should be useful to library administrators, and keep you out of trouble with funny policies or lack of policies.

You can learn more at the PLA Web site: www.pla.org.