Distance Learning: Information Access and Services for Virtual Users

The availability of distance-education programs and course offerings have increased significantly in recent years, and librarians are facing the challenges of providing resources and services to the growing numbers of students and instructors involved in these programs. This book is a slim collection of nine articles related to selected aspects of service to distant learners. The editor, Hemalata Iyer, is an associate professor at the School of Information Science and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). Seven of the contributors are either librarians or doctoral students at SUNY institutions, while the other two are librarians at other colleges in New York.

The opening article is not directly concerned with library support of distance learners, but discusses the benefits and challenges of asynchronous learning networks, particularly the ways classes conducted in this environment can be designed to foster collaborative learning and a feeling of class community and culture. While this is one of the better-written and developed articles in the collection, it is likely to be of only marginal interest to the audience of librarians.

The next three articles concern access to information resources. An article about information retrieval on the Internet reviews research studies comparing the performance of various search engines and discusses criteria for evaluating the quality of the information retrieved. These topics are relevant to Internet research by all students, not just distance-education students, and should be familiar ground for most librarians. Internet search engines are also discussed briefly in an article that provides an overview of virtual reference services. Unfortunately, the cursory nature of this overview contributes so little to this collection that it may as well have been omitted. In contrast, the article reviewing the role of consortia in supporting and facilitating access to information resources is almost overwhelming in the breadth of information provided. The author stresses the impact that new possibilities for resource sharing and cooperative services can have on distance learners. Two topics related to information access not substantially discussed in any of these articles are electronic reserve materials and systems for providing delivery of print materials directly to the distance student.

The editor states that the remaining articles are studies of distance-learning programs. One of these examines the interactions among participants in a distance-learning environment that contribute to building a sense of community. This concept was briefly discussed in the opening article, and that brief discussion was sufficient. To this reviewer, the article seems out of place in this collection and should not have been included.

The remaining articles are concerned with providing instructional services to distant learners. One article discusses the importance of incorporating an instructional component into a library's Web pages and recommends that one librarian be specifically designated as the distance librarian rather than simply add this task to the responsibilities of reference services. Another article covers design strategies, copyright issues, site maintenance functions, and usability assessments related to the development of Web-based instructional tools. The Texas Information Literacy Tutorial (TILT) is described as an outstanding example of an online tutorial. The highlight of these articles is a detailed description of the design process, implementation, and continuing administrative challenges of an award-winning online information literacy course, LIB111, developed by librarians at Ulster County Community College in New York and now available to all SUNY campuses.

The only article in the collection that is concerned with providing library services to support health sciences distance-education students discusses and compares the results of a citation analysis of the bibliographies of research papers prepared by on- and off-campus nursing students in an effort to assess service outcomes. This study was interesting but is presented in a needlessly long-winded discussion.

Although several of the articles in this collection would be useful to librarians involved in planning or providing access to information resources or services in support of distance-education students, several others are of limited interest or tedious to read. Purchase of this book is not recommended. Information on this topic can be obtained from other readily available sources. For instance, the MLA position statement Essential Library Support for Distance Education provides an overview of important issues, resource links, and recommendations [1]. Searches of databases such as MEDLINE, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), or ERIC easily identify numerous journal articles. In addition, at least two excellent Websites provide extensive and well-organized lists of resources: Library Services for Distance Learning: The Fourth Bibliography [2] compiled by Alexander L. Slade and Library Support for Distance Learning [3] by Bernie Sloan and Sharon Stoerger.