The Digital Library for Earth System Science DLESE: The Digital Library for Earth System Science Hello. Introductions Jen, holly We Work just down the road in boulder, but the project we are going to share with you is actually a nationwide distributed effort with many other universities, institutions, faculty and scientists contributing to the overall effort. The DLESE Program Centers work focuses on building the library technical infrastructure, but we also get out some to visit with users such as yourself. Why we are here To share with you an educational resource that we think you will find useful, engaging etc To get feedback from you as a user as we continue to develop it . Our entire library philosophy is user-centered, with the needs of the community as the highest priorty. Offer opportunities for you to contribute to the growing collection as well as ways to get involved in other community activites. “A Library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people.” Andrew Carnegie www.dlese.org

DLESE Mission DLESE is a digital library project, who’s goal is to “ improve blah blah .. No small goal, eh? We have been on-line for approx 18 months, and are making progress towards this goal. We currently have a 5 year plan ( and funding! ) to continue our work and expand the offerings and services of the library. We’ll be showing you the basics of where we are thus far. “To improve the quality, quantity, and efficiency of teaching and learning about the Earth at all educational levels.” DLESE Strategic Plan

Why a digital library? For many people, the first question is , why a digital library, where did this notion come from? The plans for developing an earth system science library emerged from a number of initiatives at the NSF and elsewhere. Over the past 5 years or so, an agenda to change the nature of geoscience education has been articulated through a number of gatherings and publications. Our project actually began in 1999 at conference called Portals to the Future. There are currently many other digital library projects under development, each with their own guiding theme, and many that will be united through the National Science Digital Library, or NSDL. Emerging Digital library technology offers exciting possibilities for contributing to new understandings about learning, and a mechanism to provide resources, data exploration tools, and advances in scientific understanding into the classroom. A well-articulated community goal to transform geoscience education by combining pedagogy, technology and science

“About 75 percent of students said they used the Internet first, then went to a professor or librarian for assistance, and consulted print sources last.” - Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 October 2002 (online edition) Why else a digital library? a recent article in the Chronicle states that : About 75% etc This shift in students’ approach to research and learning provides all the more impetus to provide a resource that offers students credible, scientifically accurate and educationally effective materials, whittling down the web to a more manageble, and focused collection of resources.

www.dlese.org What I’d like to do know is give you a quick tour of the several components of the website, then show you the several ways you can search for items in the collection. After that I’d like you to do some exploring on your own, and we can then talk about what you found, as well as what you didn’t!

Community Center Services News and Opportunities Post an announcement

Email lists

Job opportunities

Discovering Resources Using DLESE Discovery only for resources related to Earth system science Resources in DLESE are selected and cataloged by the ESS education community Resources are described in metadata records which enhance discovery and comprehension of the items. DLESE holds metadata records, not the actual web pages. How do we do this? DLESE provides discovery only for ……. So access to a controlled collection of resources, described and searchable by relevant educational terms and topics.

Metadata includes……… Grade level assignment Resource type (Curriculum, activity, image, data) Technical requirements Geospatial referencing Educational standards (science, geography) Metadata is the information about the resource that you are provided in a search return. Our goal is to give you the info you need to quickly grasp the content of the resource you have been returned in a search, and to judge whether it is going to meet your needs. We provide a grade level assignment, resource type etc We will eventually be offering geospatial referencing ( a few years down the line) and ed stand ( in June of 2003. While the above data are the controlled search fields, we also offer a human crafted description, which some users have told us is the most helpful of the data we provide. We will be interested to hear if you agree, and what your thoughts are on this, as well.

Browse by subject, grade level or resource type

Simple search Power search ozone Browse

Select grade level and type of resource

View the complete description

The resource itself

How Has DLESE Been Used: Provided “classic” Earth graphics for the classroom Discussion forums to design curriculum and visualizations Increased resource comprehension by teachers Helped resource creators document and manage their own collections

How can you contribute? Individuals can submit items to the library using a web-based cataloging tool Organized collections efforts DPC hosted instance of the catalog management tool Download code and maintain collection independently and share via OAI

Web-based Cataloging tool

Free-text and controlled vocabularies

Geospatial referencing, educational standards data

The DLESE Difference: Ongoing development includes Combination of metadata and resource content searching Geospatial referencing and search Search by educational standards Data visualization tools Access to other collections like NASA and Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype

Value of DLESE Promotes broad access to quality geoscience educational resources Supports geoscience literacy goals and Earth system perspectives Integrates research and education through access to Earth systems data Serves as an integrator for community capacity building, leadership, and educational transformation

www.dlese.org