Keeping our databases relevant
Hello and welcome back for a brand-new, exciting school year! I’m thrilled to be back in the library for my second year at West Morris (both Mendham High School and Central High School).
The school year has starting rolling with lots of exciting research projects underway. As usual, I troll the internet for library news and views. Here’s a fellow librarian’s blog post that hit close to home.
I know many of my students struggle with our databases. I do demos with classrooms and am constantly reminding students that usernames and passwords are required for use outside of school property. And yet this simple barrier is a huge roadblock! I can totally relate. The article linked above talks about how students aren’t able to create virtual bookmark lists of database resources. I agree with the author that our vendors need to look into this to create a more seamless database experience.
Students, any thoughts? Do you wish database content were more — portable? linkable? accessible?
