Children’s Digital Libraries developments and trends

1. Children’s Digital Libraries developments and trends LIDA 2009 Ivanka Stričević Assistant professorUniversity of Zadar, Croatia istricev@unizd.hr

2. Model of the Information Search Process (Kuhlthau) Tasks Initiation Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------→ Feelings uncertainly optimism confusion clarity sense of satisfaction or (affective) frustration direction/ disappointment doubt confidence Thoughts vague-------------------------------------→focused (cognitive) -----------------------------------------------→ increased interest Actions seeking relevant information----------------------------→seeking pertinent information (physical) exploring documenting

3. A generation that is growing up in a world dominated by the Internet More comfortable working on a keyboard than writing with a pen; more familiar with reading from a screen than from paper Children are notinformationgurus (Todd, LIDA 2006). They show a high level of skills in using computers They do not possess information literacy skills Are IL skillsenoughfor the creation of new knowledge? GuidedInquiry – Learninginthe 21st century (Kuhlthau, LIDA 2006) Digital natives, Net … Dot… Google…. G….generation

4. Childrenand Internet • Evans, LIDA 2004 • Todd, LIDA 2006 • Digital and virtual libraries have created complex and fluid, networked, interactive and unpredictable information environment • All have to learn - librarians, teachers, parents, and not children only • How children use Internet? • How they would organise information on Internet?

5. Children’s information seeking behaviors • Manyresearch • Cool (LIDA 2006) • Children are not just “little adults” • Youth information-seeking behavior : theories, models, and issues / edited by Mary K. Chelton and Colleen Cool. Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2004. • Early 1980-ies • How to teach children to use new technologies – the idea was to “adapt” the user to the system • Late 1980-ies • Development of more general models of information search process (Kuhlthau, 1988)

6. International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) • Weeks (LIDA, 2006) • Digitised books from all around the world to improve mutual understanding , promote tolerance among children of all nationalities, various languages and cultural background • An old idea but new way in which books are made available to children by using technologies of the 21st century • Bilal (LIDA, 2006) • Investigated one component of ICDL – its cross-cultural component in a framework of children’s understanding of the ICDL system design representations

7. LIDA 2006Part II. Building a digital library for children and young adults • Inclusion of young users in design process (Large et al.) • Information searching as an object of learning and its affect on new teaching strategies in schools (Limberg) • Using the Internet in authentic learning situation (McNally) • Librarians and teachers as research partners (Harada) • the concept of hyper library (Rosenstand & Rosenstand) • Social and psychological issues in the design of children’s and youth digital librariesrelated to reading promotion (Garcia) • Managing e-book collections in children’s and schools’ libraries (Lonsdale) • Croatian mirror site of ICDL (Slobođanac) • Italian project on building a local history digital collection for a little town (Corradini) • Serbian children’s digital library (Injac)

8. Situationin Croatia • Not many of children’s librarians were present at LIDA conferences • Some attempts inpractice – presented on postersessions • Buildingofchildren’s library collectionsofelectronic materials available on Internet • Developing small collections of digitized materials

9. Croatian public libraries in general still have not created separate web pages for children and young adults!!! • Croatian children librarians - more concerned with children’s access to Internet and how to manage its uncertain environment, than to move to the phase of developing ond/or using of digital libraries for children and young people