Mark L. Smith
For some of the more technology-weary among us, the distance-learning theme of this issue may not be particularly welcome. After more than a decade of struggling first to get circulation automated, then to introduce online catalogs, then to add CD-ROM resources, then, finally, to introduce Internet to the library, now comes the next wave: distance- learning and teleconferencing. Feeling overwhelmed is natural but perhaps unavoidable. It has been said that if you think you’re in control, you’re probably moving too slow.
But make no mistake about it: for libraries that are aggressive enough to seize the day, distance learning and teleconferencing have the potential to re-shape and renew the role of libraries of all types. Didn’t we say the same thing about automated catalogs, about full- text databases, and about the Internet? Yes, we did; and yes they have. But these are not isolated and unrelated phenomena, like hurdles to be leapt, then left behind. They are, rather, part of a continuum along which libraries—like the rest of the information industry—has been moving for several decades. Distance learning may represent the mature fruition of that movement, one of the latter phases of that continuum, a state in which the library is, at last, fully integrated into the information network.
The articles in this issue demonstrate that the concept of distance learning is as flexible as its applications are versatile. While we may not always be speaking precisely the same language when we talk about distance learning, the common goal of all the ideas and projects described here is a broadened accessibility to the information and education for all persons regardless of location. Julie Hallmark describes how distance learning is an integral element in the learning environment in a remote and sparsely populated west Texas county; Linda Lupro and Joyce Claypool Kinnerly describe how the Fort Bend County Library is using its new distance learning facility to extend the range of services in that public library system; Bill Johnson discusses how distance learning tools link a satellite campus to its large parent institution; Phillip Turner explores the potential of distance learning for library education; and Harold Billings proposes a “Library of Texas” enabled through a “Digital Libraries Alliance” built on a platform of distance education and resource sharing.
These articles reiterate that effective distance learning (or “distance information” as Harold Billings perhaps more accurately characterizes it) rests upon the key concepts of sharing, accessibility, and collaboration. It is not coincidental that these also happen to be the key concepts of various policy discussions currently underway in Texas, most notably the TLA legislative initiative for resource sharing and the statutory goals of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund.
Distance learning and teleconferencing could allow public libraries to reach out to new clienteles, providing community meeting and training capabilities; allow school libraries to reach the full potential implied by the phrase “media center;” allow academic libraries to contribute in yet another way to the educational agenda of their parent institution; and allow library educators to recruit and train future librarians who could never before have dreamed of pursuing a library degree.
Ultimately, distance learning technology holds the potential to permit a giant leap forward in the continuum that will someday permit our customers to access, through their library, the full range of educational and informational resources and opportunities offered by all our partnering institutions.
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