The digital library for earth system education: building community, building the library

Science educators have called repeatedly for an information system that can effectively deliver quality educational materials in readily accessible formats, with a high degree of confidence in their usefulness, interest, and effectiveness [4]. In the past 18 months, the Earth system education community has begun development of the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE). Earth system educators and key agency officials at NSF and NASA have recognized that the convergence of information and learning technologies , the maturation of basic digital library research, and the increasing ubiquity of the Web in classrooms has made the DLESE both possible and timely. Representatives of the Earth system education community came together in August 1999 to institute a governance system and an operational arm (the DLESE Program Center, or DPC) to design and develop a community-sponsored and community-owned digital library [3]. DLESE will serve the unique needs of Earth system educators and learners at all academic levels , in both formal and informal settings, by providing: Interfaces and tools to allow student exploration of geospatial materials and Earth data sets. Though a wealth of Earth data exists on the Web, much of it is difficult for educators to use. DLESE will provide student-friendly access to a wide variety of archived and real-time data sets. Rapid, sophisticated access to collections of peer-reviewed teaching and learning resources. Earth science educators have been frustrated in attempts to find high-quality teaching resources appropriate for their teaching style and educational level on the Web in a timely manner. This resource discovery challenge is being met with the creation of metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies, and cataloging best practice recommendations , all informed by community participation [2]. Services to help users effectively create and use materials. A full array of digital services and human-mediated services for both users and contributors to the library is critical to the vision of DLESE as an active organization that both builds and serves its community. A community center to facilitate sharing and collaboration. DLESE will serve as an intellectual commons for the global Earth system community by being the primary contact for educators, learners , and citizens who seek reliable information about the Earth. A federated collection of holdings. DLESE is being designed from the beginning to support resource discovery across a diverse, federated net