The role of the school librarian is evolving from keeper of library materials to leader in school reform. The digital age has elevated information literacy from the mechanics of searching and finding to thinking and inquiry. To meet this challenge the library facility is reconceptualized as a learning environment and the collection as a dynamic process of curation and access. Library staff, including paraprofessionals, student peers, and parent volunteers are viewed as instructional support. Allocated budgets are supplemented by funding sources such as grants and donations. The school librarian, trained in Action Research, can realize the library as learning center as she systematically collects evidence, sets priorities, and constructs a Strategic Plan. This module brings together the processes of action research, including identifying a problem in practice, formulating a research question, collecting and analyzing data to conduct a Community Scan and School Library Needs Assessment. She will apply her findings to building a Strategic Plan that will transform the school library into a learning center, or improve its existing functions.

This is a guide to good practices for college and university open-access (OA) policies. It's based on the type of rights-retention OA policy first adopted at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Kansas. Policies of this kind have since been adopted at a wide variety of institutions in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, for example, at public and private institutions, large and small institutions, affluent and indigent institutions, research universities and liberal arts colleges, and at whole universities, schools within universities, and departments within schools.

Library resources can be one way to lower textbook costs for students. They are high-quality resources that students already pay to access through their tuition and fees. This post explores several strategies that libraries can pursue to encourage the use of library content as course materials. There are three different audiences that are interested in this information: librarians, faculty, and students.

The OER Toolkit aims to improve equitable access to open learning resources and services to college students by providing a province-wide academic support platform for faculty to use while designing courses and assignments. The Toolkit is a one-stop guide to open educational resources, providing faculty and library staff with tools and information to understand, engage with, create, and sustain OER in their work and practice.

The Toolkit is designed to be used by anyone involved with OER at an academic institution, whether you are part of a team that is collaborating to create OER, a library staff member who is supporting OER development and use, an advocate for OER at your institution, or an instructor seeking to incorporate OER and open pedagogy in the classroom. The primary purpose of this Toolkit is to support faculty and library staff at Ontario colleges; however, it is openly available for use beyond the Ontario college community.