At seven chapters and 171 pages, The Browsable Classroom: An Introduction to E-Learning for Librarians is a fast read. Books written about electronic learning, the Internet, and technology in general take the chance that by the time they actually come out in print, much of what the authors discuss may no longer be relevant. Technological changes today come fast and furious, and for the most part libraries and librarians bear the brunt of these changes for their users, especially when it comes to keeping up their knowledge to show users how to do something. This book is written in an accessible style and is on a subject that is of interest for many medical librarians.
The preface begins with an attractive distance-learning scenario. The authors state that “for many librarians” the book will “show how libraries that support and host distance learning meet the challenge and opportunity of learning to assist users in a whole new dimension . . . Other librarians will use the book as a map as they venture into uncharted waters.” Both of these goals are met. All of the chapters contain figures except for the concluding one. The book's chapters follow a natural arc beginning with the less complicated, definition-rich, and relatively short chapter one and continuing to a longer chapter two with more description. Chapter three is much longer with an emphasis on libraries and librarians taking proactive roles in distance learning. Chapter four—the longest, most figure-rich, and concept-driven—discusses effective distance learning design. Chapter five stresses new techniques needed by instructors, while chapter six focuses on assessment. The book ends with chapter seven, which contains the conclusion. The arc is an appropriate one, and the chapters even “link” within themselves by mentioning shared and in-depth information in other chapters, thus allowing readers to skip to parts of particular interest. The book features end-of-chapter references (a mix of journal, monograph, online, and telephone interview citations), an appendix glossary, a bibliography, and an index.
Chapter four is the most useful one for anyone needing to design an online course. The use of the word “effective” as a qualifier when describing distance-learning design is a good choice for the title. The chapter backs up that modifier by discussing background issues (such as organizations and objectives), the players, potential audience, and technical considerations. Other topics include charting the course (included under this subheading are eight figures, some of them very helpful), putting the pieces together, going live, overcoming barriers to success, and reaching the always-necessary outcomes. By the chapter's end, readers will understand the essential tools needed to produce quality online courses.
Chapter five speaks to techniques needed by instructors as they select and prepare content and format but does not forget that students are by far the most important part of any successful online course. In a practical way, this chapter discusses responding to email, discussion board facilitation, handling of inappropriate communication, and writing-style concerns, as well as student comprehension of assignments.
Chapter six is the student assessment chapter, and its most interesting components are references to sites where students can perform self-assessments to determine their readiness for an online course. It also includes student checklists that can be used by the student or the instructor. Finally, it addresses the strong commitment online course providers must have to student technical support.
This book was very readable. The figures were helpful, especially in chapters four and six. The reviewer only found three sites that were no longer valid and four that had different uniform resource locators (URLs) that were either automatically linked or could be found with a bit of digging. This phenomenon is a risk taken whenever citing Internet sites. Many of the sites given were very stable. More could have been written on the assessment of a good online instructor. The student assessment tests seemed to be good indicators for student success.