A new app for the iPad and Android devices uses a highly visual format to provide a different search experience for the tablet user. More than just a pretty interface, Izik—which debuted last month as the top reference app in iTunes—is based on Blekko, the search engine that boasts higher quality results based on human curation.

Enter a search term and Izik surfaces a stack of results based on category. The query “Black History Month” provided a “Quick Answer” up top, followed by related images, recent news, and categories, in this case, “African American,” “Black History,” and “American History.”

Navigation is optimized for the tablet format. So cutting down on keystrokes, users can swipe horizontally to view more results within the categories or swipe vertically to reveal more categories related to your search topic. Pinch to expand a result and share it via Facebook or Twitter directly from the search page.

Gary Price, editor of INFOdocket, cited Blekko, along with Duck Duck Go, as a viable alternative to Google. (“Wary of Google? Try These Alternative Search Tools”)

What distinguishes Blekko is a search tool known as slashtags. This feature enables users to refine results and build curated collections of select Web pages and then search and share those resources with others. So create a collection of Web resources, then share the slashtag with students, suggests Price. “Now, the only sites they’ll be searching are the ones you’ve selected,” he writes.

For a deeper dive into slashtags, creating custom slashtags and even embedding them on your website, check out Blekko’s search tutorial.

Image from ‘Atlas by Collins’

A number of apps address the state of our planet. One of the first produced for students was Al Gore’s award-winning Our Choice (Melcher Media/Push Pop Press; $4.99), featuring stunning photography, informative video clips, and a compelling message about global warming. In 7 Billion: How Your World Will Change (National Geographic; $4.99) thought-provoking photos, videos, charts, and articles examine the impact of population growth on the earth, including commentary on food sources, family size, and the most challenged regions of the world. Fragile Earth, one of SLJ’s Top 10 Apps of 2012, offers a gallery of photos detailing the impact of human endeavors and natural phenomena on the environment. Satellite and land photographs, taken from minutes to years apart, depict the alarming before-and-after effects of mining, deforestation, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other events on our landscape.

The recently released Atlas by Collins takes a look at our planet from a number of perspectives. Cathy Potter reviews it below.

Chart, “Energy Consumption,” from ‘Atlas by Collins’

Gr 6 Up-The expansive Atlas by Collins contains seven globes: satellite, physical, political, population, environment, communications, and energy. For each thematic section text and illustrations combine to provide an overview of the subject.

“Living Earth” explores the natural world and a variety of landscapes, as well as changes in and threats to the planet, among other topics. “People and Power” considers where energy reserves are located, where energy is produced and consumed, how technology connects the world, and more. These and other subjects are addressed through questions (“What are the major environmental threats to our planet and the areas most affected? “What energy reserves does each country contain?” “Where in the world can you get mobile phone coverage?) and detailed answers are provided along with captioned photos, charts, and graphs (sources cited).

Viewers swipe to spin the 3-D globes; pinch and pull to zoom in and out. While zooming in the globe will switch to Google Maps, but an Internet connection is required to take advantage of this feature. A location bar at the top of each screen marks the city and country or region displayed. A tap on the information symbol opens a window that reveals country statistics and information on the nation’s land, climate, economy, demographics, and transportation, and a few images–information that will be useful to student researchers. Each entry also includes links to the country’s web site.

Menus below each globe provide readers with a plethora of information about our planet including birth rates, pollution hotspots, and Internet usage. Color-coded keys and symbols help readers interpret the information presented. (The app contains no narration or sound effects.)

The satellite globe is the only one that downloads when users purchase the app. The others must be installed individually, and the amount of time required to do so is considerable. While the breadth of information in Atlas by Collins is impressive, the download time, tendency to shut down, and substantial amount of storage space required (1.3 GB) may prove problematic for some users.—Cathy Potter, Falmouth Elementary School, Falmouth, ME

Eds. note: For a look inside Atlas by Collins take a peek at the trailer.

Now 20 lucky readers will have a chance to win signed hardcover copies of each title. To enter, simply email giveaway@beyondword.com with your name, the name of your library, your mailing address, and a daytime phone number. Entries must be received by midnight (PST) on Thursday, October 25. Winners will be selected in a random drawing and notified via email. One entry per person; prizes will only be shipped to U.S. addresses.

Photo courtesy of Jupiterimages

Imagine that while interviewing for a library job you’re asked, “What would storytime specifically for African-American families look like to you?” That’s what happened to Kirby McCurtis. “I thought it was an especially interesting and challenging question,” says Kirby, who aced the interview and is now Multnomah County Library’s (MCL) newest African-American librarian. “It stayed with me even after the second interview. Now that I am working here, I have the opportunity to answer it every Saturday. It’s very exciting!”

A couple of years ago, our library received an LSTA grant to explore strategies to attract and better serve African-American families. Naturally, we relied on the local black community to lead the way. Focus groups with parents and interviews with key leaders revealed a desire for more books and services that would highlight the richness of African-American culture and experiences. One specific recommendation was to develop and promote an explicitly black-culture-focused storytime to help families feel welcome at the library.

At first, the idea of offering a storytime specifically for African-American children seemed regressive. But why? We know that every child needs to feel that his culture is respected and valued. In fact, 15 years ago, when the National Association for the Education of Young Children revised its guidelines for effective teaching and learning practices, it included a child’s cultural identity in the mix. We also hoped that offering a black storytime would foster children’s knowledge and pride in their cultural identity and demonstrate that MCL holds African-American culture in high regard.

Black storytime is a natural extension of some of the tailored storytimes we already offer in English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Kirby agrees: “I view this storytime no differently than a non-English language storytime. I know ‘black’ is not a language, but the African Diaspora is too vast to have just one language, so instead, we are being all inclusive by organizing the storytime around the black experience in America. And, of course, black storytimes are open to all.”

Kirby is a recent transplant to Portland, OR, so she was unsure what kind of reception the new storytime would receive. “The reactions have been mixed,” she says, “but the biggest surprises for me were the questions from MCL staff: “Why have a storytime just for African-American kids? And, why is it called black storytime?” This surprises me because we are all in the business of literacy, and the difference in literacy rates between black and white youth in America is no secret. How can an effort to improve and support black children’s literacy be viewed as a bad thing?

The name “black storytime” troubled a few patrons, too. “We bounced around a few different names but they were unnecessarily complex and confusing,” explains Kirby. “Calling it ‘black storytime’ is simple and straightforward. It speaks to the people we want to bring into the library, and it is inclusive to all people who are black, not just African Americans.”

How’s the new program doing? It’s “off to a rousing start,” shares Kirby. “We have consistent attendance of 18 to 20 kids each week, including nonblack families, and all seem to be having a great time, no matter what race they are. I am very deliberate about the book selection, introducing families to stories that appeal and speak to the black experience. If kids see characters that look like themselves, I hope they will be more encouraged to read and explore books with the adults in their lives.” Kirby focuses on other aspects of African-American culture too, such as its music, strong oral tradition, and the respect shown to elders.

“At the end of each storytime, parents thank me for the great program,” she says. “I want them to see the library as a community space and resource, so I take a few minutes to ask what else they would like to see at the library. Black storytime is just our launch pad for other programming and services to the black community at MCL.” Kirby concludes, “I feel hopeful about our efforts to reach the black community, because I’ve seen already that the kids are excited to come to the library on Saturdays!”

Financial Literacy covers everything from personal and household finance to market economics and globalization. With a growing emphasis on financial education and planning, the database makes economics and money management easy to understand and highly engaging. Teen CyberSmarts is the latest in Rosen’s ground-breaking interactive ebook collection. Companion to the award-winning CyberSmarts program for elementary schools, Teen CyberSmarts gives middle and high school students hands-on experience in navigating the online world in a safe, controlled environment. The Teen CyberSmarts also helps meet CIPA requirements to ensure federal funding through the E-rate program. To start exploring, visit Financial Literacy and Teen CyberSmarts and enter the username “sljteen1″ and the password “sljteen1.”

By Alicia Eames

For the college-bound the pressure is on; there are essays to write, tests to ace, and applications to complete. With guides galore available to teens, this round-up offers a sampling of recent titles. Students (and their parents) will find useful information on the college-search and admission process, minus the hype. And, for those who have sealed the deal, there’s practical advice for “surviving and thriving” in class and on campus, guidance for teens with special needs, and some constructive assessments to aid “undeclared” applicants choose a field of study.

The Application Process

DOWHAN, Adrienne, Chris Dowhan & Dan Kaufman. 3rd ed. Essays That Will Get You Into College. Barron’s. 2009.
While it might seem slightly incongruous that the authors “are all part of an Internet-based company called IvyEssays,” a commercial writing and editing service, their step-by-step guide to penning successful college entrance essays cannot be discounted. Particularly useful is a section of 25 essays written by real students with comments by admissions officers.

HEWITT, Doug & Robin Hewitt. Get Into College in 3 Months or Less. Prufrock Press. 2011.
Written by a husband-and-wife team with personal experience steering their own teens through the college admission process, this slim but information-packed guide completely covers the basics while urging readers along with a cheerful can-do attitude. While geared to teens who’ve arrived at the college decision late in the game, all academia-bound students will find it useful.

MAMLET, Robin & Christine Vandevelde. College Admission: From Application to Acceptance, Step by Step. Three Rivers Press. 2011.
Observations from Deans of Admissions, from Sarah Lawrence to the University of California, are sprinkled throughout this comprehensive guide, which stretches from “Becoming College-Bound” to making the choice once the acceptance letters arrive. Appendices include a high school timeline, further print and online resources, and worksheets (downloadable at www.collegeadmissionbook.com where additional information is freely available).

Profiles of American Colleges 2013. 30th ed. Barron’s. 2012.
While daunting in heft, students beginning the search for a four-year college will appreciate this well-known handbook for its thorough introduction to “more than 1650” schools. Highlights include an easy-to-follow “Step-by-Step Guide to College Acceptance,” an “Index of College Majors,” and an alphabetical arrangement by state. An online version is available with purchase.

SHAEVITZ, Marjorie Hansen. Admission Possible: The “Dare To Be Yourself” Guide for Getting into the Best Colleges for You. Sourcebooks. 2012.
Chock-full of user-friendly and student-centered advice on extracurricular activities, admission essays, letters of recommendation, test taking, and everything else students and parents need to know about the admissions process, this is the guide a motivated high school freshman will want to own. Fortunately, the information is available to all students at no charge at admissionpossible.com.

Surviving and Thriving

COHEN, Harlan. The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College. 4th ed. Sourcebooks. 2011.
Speaking with a just-right mix of humor and authority, Cohen introduces newbie college students to the nitty-gritty of life on campus with advice on dealing with roommates (naked and otherwise), managing finances, going to (and missing) class, navigating the pitfalls of sex and drugs, and other important topics. Parents will want to have the companion volume The Naked Roommate: For Parents Only (2012) on hand, while those planning freshman orientation might want to consider adding The Naked Roommate’s First Year Survival Workbook: The Ultimate Tools for a College Experience with More Fun, Less Stress, and Top Success (2012) to their list of resources.

FEAVER, Peter, Sue Wasiolek & Anne Crossman. Getting the Best Out of College: Insider Advice for Success from a Professor, a Dean, and a Recent Grad. rev & updated. Ten Speed Press. 2012.
The introduction shares “a fundamental secret: it matters less where students choose to go than what they choose to do once they get there.” From there, the authors (all hail from Duke University) reveal the essential ins and outs of a meaningful college experience, from dorm life to relationships with parents to study abroad while recognizing education as a privilege that isn’t guaranteed to all.

GARTON, Christie. U Chic: The College Girl’s Guide to Everything. updated 2nd ed. Sourcebooks. 2011.
The “Everything” in this title embraces choosing a major and deciding upon grad school, but the decided emphasis is on all things social, including Facebook etiquette, online dating, partying, hooking-up, sororities, keeping fit, and staying safe. This friendly, big-sister-toned advice is packaged with a bright pink cover.

JACOBS, Lynn F. & Jeremy S. Hyman. The Secrets of College Success: Over 600 Tips & Tricks Revealed. (Professors’ Guide Series). Jossey-Bass. 2010.
Two college professors dispense practical, insider advice in easy-to-digest lists, such as “6 Things You Didn’t Know About Grading (but Really Should),” “10 Tips for Writing the Perfect Paper,” and “Top 10 Myths About Study Abroad.” Other topics include selecting courses, knowing when to ask for help, and building rapport with professors.

QUARATIELLO, Arlene R. with Jane Devine. The College Student’s Research Companion: Finding, Evaluating, and Citing the Resources You Need to Succeed. 5th ed. Neal-Schuman. 2011.
A handy tool for students who need to brush up on key information-literacy skills, such as using an online catalog, searching the Web, plumbing subscription databases, and evaluating sources, this introduction also takes readers through the basics of writing a research paper. Practice exercises (with answers) reinforce the lessons. Links to the myriad websites referenced by the authors can be found at www.neal-schuman.com/research.

SCOTT, Sheridan, Nancy Allen & Anya Settle. Now You Tell Me! 12 College Students Give the Best Advice They Never Got. Arundel Publishing. 2012.
Young men and women from a wide range of academic settings share their personal experiences and offer guidance on “College Learning” and “College Life,” including choosing schools and majors, building friendships, managing time, and seizing new opportunities. Videos and additional material are available at www.nowyoutellmebooks.com/college.

Advice for Students with Special Needs

QUINN, Patricia O. AD/HD and the College Student: The Everything Guide to Your Most Urgent Questions. Magination Press/APA. 2012.
Written in a question-and-answer format by a pediatrician with over 30 years experience (and who has AD/HD), this is a go-to-book for students with the disorder as they navigate college life. The author tackles real-life topics, including parents, stress, health, medication, academics, Facebook, roommates, romance, and alcohol, as she offers no-nonsense, caring advice in easy-to-manage portions.

QUINN, Patricia O. & Theresa E. Laurie Maitland. On Your Own: A College Readiness Guide for Teens with ADHD/LD. Magination Press/APA. 2011.
Designed to help individuals “create a personalized college readiness plan,” this step-by-step, interactive handbook encourages students to assess their self-determination, daily living, and academic skills through checklists and worksheets while forming an action plan for completing goals. Down-to-earth tips for improving skills along with suggested books and websites encourage success.

SIMPSON, Cynthia G. & Vicky G. Spencer. College Success for Students with Learning Disabilities: Strategies and Tips to Make the Most of Your College Experience. Prufrock Press. 2009.
In order for IEPs to reflect the necessary goals, college planning for students with learning disabilities ought to begin in eighth grade. In a conversational tone, interspersed with lists of tips, tables, and worksheets, the authors guide students (and parents and counselors) through practical considerations while emphasizing that student self-advocacy is essential. Boxes labeled “Learning to Ask the Right Questions” with need-to-know items are especially useful.

BROWN, Jane Thierfeld et al. The Parent’s Guide to College for Students on the Autism Spectrum. AAPC Publishing. 2012.

While transitioning to college life is rarely easy, students on the autism spectrum face unique challenges that this comprehensive guidebook addresses, such as deciding where to apply, legal accommodations for disabled students, and academic and social issues. The authors imbue this book with a personal touch by including brief descriptions of situations that the students they’ve worked with have encountered (a student has a research paper due but her roommates are blasting loud music, a freshman wants to socialize but finds the sensory overload of the dining overwhelming). Though billed as a “Parent’s Guide,” charts and tables such as “New Student Resource Guide” and the “20-Question Stress Test” make this particularly useful to the college-bound as well.

TIEDEMANN, Chris Wise. College Success for Students with Physical Disabilities. Prufrock Press. 2012.
As the mother of a son with cerebral palsy and founder of the website, Disability Friendly Colleges, the author offers hard-won insight into planning for college, what to expect, finding a school, preparing for college life, academic achievement, and personal concerns and services in six well-organized chapters, each of which incorporates the first-hand experiences of four students with different disabilities.

Choosing a Major

LIPTAK, John J.. College Major Quizzes: 12 Easy Tests to Discover Which Programs Are Best. JIST. 2011.
Undecided high school and college students can benefit from self-assessments that examine a student’s interests and skills, favorite subjects, personality traits, and leisure pursuits to identify personally satisfying academic programs. Liptak draws on the 16 U.S. Department of Education career clusters, from “Agriculture and Natural Resources” to “Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics,” and each is described in an appendix.

SHATKIN, Laurence. Panicked Student’s Guide to Choosing a College Major: How to Confidently Pick Your Ideal Path. JIST. 2011.
Using the Holland Types personality theory and a list of 28 skills gleaned from the U.S. Department of Labor’s employment information website O*NET Online, Shatkin guides readers through a process of selecting a college major based on personality traits, defined skills, and preferred high school courses. Additionally, he presents profiles of 120 majors with related career possibilities.

From the left (left image): Rocco Staino; Barbara Genco, Library Journal's manager of special projects; and Christopher Harris. From the left (right image):Jon Gregory, Matt Andros, Roger Rosen, Diana McDermott, and Geraldine Curran. Photographs by Sean McGinty.

The world of reference is moving at warp speed these days. Public library patrons are used to Wikipedia and expect the same convenience when it comes to library resources. And in many school libraries, budget crunches, technology issues, and Common Core standards have made librarians’ jobs even more, shall we say, exciting. Wouldn’t you love to sit down with some of the world’s leading reference publishers and say, “Hey, wait a second! This is what we need you to do to make our libraries better”?

Well, here’s the next best thing. The following conversation offers an abridged, fly-on-the-wall view of SLJ’s gathering of publishers, aggregators, and, yes, librarians at the American Library Association’s January midwinter meeting in Dallas. Our goal? To talk about the latest trends and issues in reference materials for school and public libraries. A broad mandate, to be sure, but one that was ably corralled by our quick-thinking moderators, Christopher Harris, of New York’s Genesee Valley Educational Partnership, and Wendy Stephens, of New Market, Alabama’s Buckhorn High School. The duo, both librarians and SLJ contributors, led a spirited discussion of the merits of print vs. digital learning, the impact of those Common Core guidelines on publishers’ plans, and other timely and vexing topics.

Christopher Harris: What are schools looking for these days?

Wendy Stephens: One of our databases had a lovely area where all of these social issues, topics, were broken down. It was the best interface for selling databases to my students and teachers because in one moment they could see what was most applicable to the topic that they were working on. They didn’t even have to type anything.

Rocco Staino (SLJ contributing editor): Schools that have AP courses need quality information that’s very expensive to subscribe to for the entire year. But let’s say we only need access for the month of April. I think temporary or periodic access to expensive resources is something that libraries are open to.

Harris: Let’s be honest, that’s what they’re doing with trials anyway. Here’s a chance to monetize that. All the studies show that people pirate music because there’s no easy, cost-effective way to access it. If you make it easy and cost effective, they buy it instead because pirating it is a pain. But now there are new pricing models, or maybe we could go back to old-school consortia pricing. One library needs the database in March and another one in April, and one of them’s doing it at 8:30 in the morning, one of them’s doing it at 2:30 in the afternoon. Can we buy seats, and spread some of the cost out?

Jon Gregory (vice president of regional sales, World Book): But one of the first questions that we’re asked by our new subscribers is, “This isn’t seats, is it?”

Rick Lumsden (executive director of institutional sales, Britannica Digital Learning): We’re very flexible. If somebody says, “I’ve got money for two months,” I can switch them on and off for two months. Going the other direction, when money runs out, digital content goes away. We have a lot of people who say, “I’ve got the money now. I’m going to subscribe for five years, so that I know it’s there.” There are always creative solutions.

Staino: But in some states, you can’t do that.

Lumsden: Still, there’s a lot of flexibility with digital content. I’m not really sure our customers know that, but they shouldn’t be shy about asking.

Harris: There might be opportunities if you build modular things around the large curricular areas.

Gregory: That’s absolutely where we’re headed, and I know you all are doing the same thing.

Staino: AP courses are standard throughout the country, so everyone who has an American history AP course is doing the same thing and needs that material.

Gregory: So we create a database that should cover nine or 12 months’ worth of curriculum and price it knowing how much things will be used. But the problem is that it has to be there the whole time so the teachers can be trained. And you have students who are trying to catch up on the remedial side or who come in late to the game, and if access has just been turned off, it’s a problem.

Diana McDermott (director of marketing and sales, M. E. Sharpe): I also work on the academic side and the push is even more urgent there in terms of libraries wanting to pay only for what is used. But it’s difficult for a small publisher to invest in new products without having a firmer grasp on what the revenue might be.

Because we were late in the game and wanted to provide as much flexibility as possible, we set up a one-time purchase for digital. We thought that might be an incentive for libraries, as well, because they could budget it when it worked best. So many libraries—I would guess most of them—have access through statewide consortia to these larger databases and encyclopedias. We had to explain how ours could be looked at as a one-time book purchase. And we’ve been successful with that.

Stephens: Is that sustainable in the long term? I worry about the infrastructure required to maintain that, whether materials sold that way will continue to be available to us.

McDermott: Our costs are not as huge as some other databases, and we still publish print. We’re not sure how long we can financially sustain that, though we like to make print available and have librarians who still want it.

Roger Rosen (CEO of Rosen Publishing): With an outright purchase, does a library have access to all your updates?

Stephens: I think if [publishers are] not updating, they just have to make that new print edition so dynamic and so different that libraries will want to buy it to get the electronic, or get the electronic only.

From the left: Diana McDermott and Geraldine Curran; Henrietta Thornton-Verma and Rocco Staino; Rick Lumsden.

Harris: We need a mathematician and an economist to help us, because we do these things by gut. Maybe I buy one copy of the ebook, and I get to use it with one student—or five-to-one, or 10-to-one, or X-to-one. What’s the value of X that ceases to be statistically different from unlimited, simultaneous access?

Stephens: In the school environment, I would say it’s a class, or in a district it may be a class per school.

Stephens: Will there be a greater emphasis on embedding images and video?

Rosen: Yes, so long as it truly advances the content and is substantively useful in terms of access that goes way beyond the book, and provides a wealth of primary-source documents, historic coverage of an event, or audio recordings of speeches or of poets reading their own work. That’s amazing fire power.

One of the things we’re looking at is how copyright-friendly material is embedded within what we’re creating so that they can use it, do their mash-ups, use 21st-century transliteracy modes to be ever more capable producers, and have a sense of ownership about their learning.

Geraldine Curran (marketing specialist, Scholastic): We feel that our TrueFlix online material has enhanced a longstanding product that many librarians enjoyed in print. It’s been called not just an ebook, but a digital learning tool. It was nice to hear people like yourselves call it that.

Stephens: How do you create an interface that works on a mobile device and has the features of a full-fledged database?

Gregory: That’s a real challenge, and not just on the publishers’ and aggregators’ side. It’s because of different formats. Apple doesn’t work with Flash, for example. And by the time you feel like you have it all together, the rules change on how to make material robust and include the videos, the pictures, and all that textual content. We get caught up in the idea that if it’s digital, it’s better, but we still have students who learn better using print. If we’re going to look out for learners, not just try to be 21st century, we have to understand that online is just a delivery method.

Stephens: As many lovely things that you can do within the databases—send the articles to yourself, formulate the citation, download—a lot of kids in my school don’t have access to home computing. It’s not necessarily even a financial issue. Part of the area that I work in is very rural, and they’re using dial-up or satellite.

Gregory: And the more robust we make something, the harder it is for those in rural areas to access.

Stephens: Exactly, and all the different options are so confusing sometimes. If you try to look at a full-fledged database on a mobile device, it’s one of the most frustrating experiences.

Lumsden: A real challenge right now for publishers is that when people ask for access on mobile devices, they may mean a multitude of things—access to a standard interface on a mobile device, a site that’s optimized for mobile devices, or an app. Right now, we’re doing all three because we don’t know where things will go. One of the things that publishers need from librarians is clarity about what they mean when they’re talking about mobile devices.

Harris: How are database publishers helping librarians curate the best resources for students?

Rosen: We serve initially as curators of what we deem to be the most appropriate material—primary-source documents that are age appropriate, correlated to the curriculum, and potentially at the right reading level. We want to move students from being passive consumers of information to more active creators of it and thereby fulfill many of the mandates of the Common Core state standards.

McDermott: I agree with Roger in terms of the publisher functioning as a curator. When the publisher gears material to exactly that level, we hope that students will become more engaged more quickly because the material is accessible, it’s what they need, and it’s interesting to them.

Harris: Matt, as a larger database vendor, do you foresee more of that?

Matt Andros (vice president of field sales, EBSCO): Definitely. The difficult position we’re put in as an aggregator is getting content that’s written at the right level—especially when you’re looking at K–3 or K–5, there’s not much for that audience. We use a Lexile indicator so we can see exactly the level material is written at, and that helps.

Stephens: How do you encourage kids to use your digital resources before they turn to Google or Wikipedia? Is there a way to highlight quality content within the search results or on your home pages?

Gregory: One of the good things about search is that we don’t have to wonder. We can look at curriculums and Common Core standards to find out what they’re going to be looking up and work toward that. Also we can see what they type into the search box and move information relevant to that “above the fold,” as we used to say with newspapers, and find out where we need to develop more content. Looking at queries also helps us realize when we’re putting resources toward something that we thought they were spending a lot of time on, and they’re not.

Stephens: I use the same method for collection building. I look at what people have entered as search terms in our OPACs. I like the idea that you’re building off those queries.

Harris: I would really encourage you to deeply investigate the analytics. You can see that a student spent only 30 seconds on an article because it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.

Gregory: What if they only spent a little time because they found all they needed quickly? They could spend five minutes on an article but not find what they’re looking for, but there the statistics are saying, “Great resource!” Whereas in an article they looked at for 30 seconds or a minute, they found all they needed in the first two paragraphs because we did our ranking properly and moved it to the top.

Lumsden: The search results can really drive your content development and the way that you display results. But the issue of how to get them to actually do the search to begin with is still a huge challenge. The question is, can resources be in all the different places that librarians or other educators are searching for content? Are they completely integrated with the district’s learning management system or the school’s library catalogue, so that you have as many potential touch points as possible for a search to occur?

Rosen: The school administration needs to empower librarians to have time with students for deep education about what being a good digital citizen and being cyberliterate mean. Kids should understand that any random hit is not necessarily as good as a vetted, authoritative resource.

Stephens: My biggest challenge in pushing students to better content is the teachers. I have so many teachers who are not the best types of searchers, who don’t have the best skills at identifying quality information. The most success I’ve had is when they return to graduate school and their work is scrutinized, and that feedback trickles down to the classrooms and they raise the bar.

From left (left image): Christopher Harris; Wendy Stephens; Jennifer Pfau, ABC-CLIO’s marketing manager of print and electronic products; and Rick Lumsden. From left (right image):Matt Andros, Roger Rosen, and Diana McDermott.

Gregory: Let’s look at primary-source documents. How were teachers taught to use primary-source documents 20 years ago? Now, they’re all digitized but teachers didn’t get any instruction back then on how to use them. So one thing we do, and I know the other publishers and aggregators do, is provide guidance on teaching with documents.

Harris: Improvement also means moving away from textbooks as regurgitators of tertiary analysis. It’s going to be increasingly important to have direct explanations from experts who are able to offer true descriptions, definitions, and reviews of topics, overviews that don’t attempt to analyze, because we expect students to do that.

Lumsden: You just defined an encyclopedia article. For those of us in more traditional areas of publishing, the challenge is to make sure people understand where articles come from, that they’re written by experts.

Staino: We’re very tech savvy and we probably think everyone is moving toward electronic access. But I know some people who still buy print encyclopedias because they don’t have the hardware. What’s your feeling about that?

Gregory: If everybody had unlimited budgets, they’d probably buy both because of the different types of learners we were talking about. When some administrators and librarians have decided to back off print reference and buy online products, four or five years later, budgets are cut and they can no longer buy the online resource. If they had bought print, they’d have some shelf life. You have zero shelf life with 100 percent digital; when it’s cut off, you’ve got 100 percent of nothing. I heard from one of the largest library systems on the West Coast that they put their print encyclopedias out for circulation when they’re a year old.

Stephens: I do exactly the same thing. Print is excellent for equity of access, but also because if a student who’s using it looks up Paul Revere, it says, “See also American Revolution,” and so on. Then I can show them the related topics and controlled vocabulary they need to know. Also, sometimes the databases are just overwhelming and a circulating encyclopedia is much more digestible.

Gregory: You lose something going to digital, in my opinion. Years ago, when we had to write about Rhode Island, we got the “R” volume off the shelf, and on the way to “Rhode Island” saw “Revolutionary War.” A week later, I remember the Revolutionary War, and I don’t know a thing about Rhode Island. You miss that casual learning completely with digital.

Harris: I disagree. For me serendipity means that somebody failed to develop a proper search interface. Serendipity is an excuse that means, “We don’t know how to do fuzzy logic.” I can code serendipity that’s better than serendipitous. We have the ability to start using rich document format and semantic metadata so things will pop up that say, “You’re looking for Rhode Island? Rhode Island was in the Revolutionary War. Find out more about the Revolutionary War.”

Gregory: But with casual learning, you could find something beginning with “R” that’s nothing to do with Rhode Island.

Harris: We coded that. On our library portal is a little button that says, “Go fish.” Kids click on the button and it takes them to a random book. I see on Rosen’s PowerKids site, they have little things on the front page that rotate quite often, and I know World Book and the other encyclopedias do that too. You can digitally craft things to replace serendipity.

Staino: One thing I’ve observed is that with digital, kids become individual casual learners rather than group casual learners, whereas with print, they share more.

Lumsden: The problem isn’t format, it’s user attitude. There are far more opportunities for finding things serendipitously in a digital format than in a book because things that are related are linked.