Consider how a school might organise digital content.
For a high school library, I feel like the following might be important to consider when organising digital content:
- student literacy needs
- student attention span
- student access to technology
- student ability to navigate online spaces
- student information behaviours (sadly they often take the easy, convenient way out)
- student information needs (such as for specific subjects or assessments)
Due to this, a school’s digital collection should be organised with accessible language and formatting, in a visually appealing manner. Visuals such as book covers could support simple summaries of the text, while simple bibliographic details and subject headings could help users determine whether content is relevant to them or not. For instance, most students probably wouldn’t select a resource based on its size or page numbers. I think that having groups of similar resources would be an effective way of organising digital content for students who are looking for quick fixes with their research. Teacher librarians, working alongside classroom teachers, could curate reading lists for specific assessments which can help students navigate their way through the digital catalogue, and TLs should teach specific strategies (such as boolean operators, filters) to help students access and find relevant, quality information. Access to these digital libraries should be provided within the library and promoted to the school community to ensure students can independently access these resources in their classrooms and, where possible, at home.