Capstone
Ann Bishop
(abishop@uiuc.edu)
(not ready to use)
Coauthors
ASK
Subject Areas
| Education, Educational Technology, Information Science, Social Studies |
Grade Levels
| Graduate, Continuing, Informal |
Unit Keywords
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capstone, LIS 380, Fall 2001, literacy, reference, collection, development, policy, library, librarians, information |
Rationale of the Unit
| During this semester, I have used the topic of Adult Literacy as the guiding theme for each of the assigned modules. For my capstone project, I decided to join the last 3 modules together to create an online "Literacy Library," which will be a simple digital library. |
Background and Resources
BACKGROUND
Glynn, Julia. "How to develop a policy for an online literacy-focused collection which will be available to small communities with few resources." http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=select&xmlfile=u10984.xml. October 2001.
--. "Evaluation of web sites created by prominent adult literacy organizations." http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=select&xmlfile=u11239.xml. November 2001.
--. "An Online Reference Services Policy for an Adult Literacy Organization." http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=select&xmlfile=u11526.xml.. December 2001.
READINGS
Please refer to my previous Inquiry Units to see the full list of sources used throughout the semester to create this project.
Bopp, Richard E. and Linda C. Smith. Reference and Information Services: An Introduction , Third Edition. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 2001.
Castro, Elizabeth. HTML for the World Wide Web: Visual Quickstart Guide , Fourth Edition. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2000.
Rosenfeld, Louis & Peter Modville. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web . Sebastapol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1998.
Taylor, Arlene G. The Organization of Information . Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1999.
WEB SITES
Please refer to my previous Inquiry Units to see the full list of sources used throughout the semester to create this project.
Internet Detective http://www.sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html
RESOURCES AND SUPPLEMENT MATERIALS
These are the sites linked to on my website.
In alphabetical order.
ALA Office for Information Technology Policy: Digital Divide http://www.ala.org/oitp/digitaldivide/index.html
International Literacy Explorer http://litserver.literacy.upenn.edu/explorer/index.html
Laubach Literacy International/Laubach Literacy Action www.laubach.org/home.html
LITERACY.org http://literacy.org/
Literacy Volunteers of America http://www.literacyvolunteers.org/home/index.htm
PBS Literacy Links http://www.pbs.org/literacy/index.html
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations, Consultation on United Nations Literacy Decade Project http://www.unesco.org/education/litdecade/introduction.html
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Activities and Open-ended problems
Dialogues, Discussions, and Presentations
An attached paper discusses the background and goals of this project.
For further investigation, I decided to follow the guidelines set by the Internet Detective to vet my site. Hopefully I will not be too predjudiced in my opinions, as I did create the site. If I had more time, I would ask someone else to follow the suggested guidelines and review the site. Since this is not the case, I will try, as best that I can, to be as discriminating as I was when I vetted the other sites.
Content
Validity ~ Purpose of site is to assist librarians gather information for their patrons on literacy issues and organizations around the world. Information appears to be honest and well organized. Site is not cluttered with superfluous information. Site is only available in English. Effort appears to have gone into creating and researching the site.
Accuracy ~ Site was created by a first year graduate students at the University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. No indication of an editorial staff overseeing the production of the site. I could find no typographical errors.
Authority ~ Site is located on a University of Illinois server.
Uniqueness ~ A mission statement is available on the homepage. A collection development policy and reference services policy have also been developed by the creator of the site. A form is available for the patron to request information. One page contains links to other sites. If a site has been vetted, there is a note.
Completeness ~ Site appears to be still underconstruction. Although there is a reference information request form, the form has not been set up to be sent. Currently, request for information is to be emailed to the webmaster/librarian. Site has no bad links.
Coverage ~ The following information is available on the site: a mission statement, a collection development policy, a reference services policy, links to multiple adult literacy organizations, a reference request form.
Form
Navigation ~ No site map is available but site is small (homepage plus 4 pages). Each page is linked to the homepage. Side bar frames are available when they are needed.
User Support ~ On the home page there is a link to the webmaster's email address. There is also a link to a form page for information request.
Appropriate Technologies ~ By viewing the source code for the home page, one can see the meta tags. No special software is need to view any of the information. There is no audio.
Process Criteria
Information Integrity ~
Currently the site has no archived section. Site is organized in a simple format.
Site Integrity ~ Each page states the last time it was updated by stating month and year (e.g., December 2001). There is no copyright date.
System Integrity ~ Server is stable. |
Assessment, Related Questions, and Story of the Unit
Most of my assessment of this project has been covered in the attached essay.
One final thought that has come to me since I finished my brief essay. Digital libraries are going to become more important to our growing global society. In just the past few years, the Internet has changed many people's perception of the world, just imagine what will happen after a generation that never knew a life without the Internet comes of age. There will be a myriad of options that we, today, cannot even fathom.
I would eventually like to add electronic resources to this collection, for example, .PDF files of journal articles. I would also like to have a reciprocal relationship with public and academic libraries around the country, and the world, so that patrons can access the information via an Interlibrary Loan system. This project can only get more advanced. My "Collection Development Policy," as you can see on the web site, states what my intentions are for this site in the future.
At this time, I see that I am unfortunately limited by my lack of training on certain available technolgies, languages (computer and spoken), and just some basic resources. What is the old adage, the more you know, the more you realize that you don't know anything? Over the next few years, I hopefully will find the time to commit to helping this project grow. I think this web site has the potential to be a respectable source to which librarians can refer patons.
Fellow LIS380 student, Amy Schuler, made the following comments on my project: "You did a nice job synthesizing all of the elements of the other modules -- reference services, collection development & information architecture. You have a nice collection of sites and it meshes with the criteria regarding websites that you provide in your collection development policy. I like your mission statement and "about" sections, and they make me re-think the way I did my own "about this site" page (and I think you mentioned that it might be good for me to put these sorts of statements on my homepage, too, rather than on a separate page). The only other thing I would suggest is that you re-name your online form to something like, "E-mail Reference Request" or something in order to make it appear more like what it really is -- a reference service (rather than a request for, say, products or materials of some sort)."
Amy's comments have given me some perspective. I like her remark about changing the name of my online request form. I hadn't seen that as potential problem before. Having someone else look at your project is always helpful because it is hard to make judgements about a project that one has been working on for a long time.
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Credits & Acknowledgements
| See "Investigate" section. |
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