Distance Education and the Changing Role of the Library Media Specialist

This article is based on "Distance Education and the Changing Role of the Library Media Specialist," by Michael A. Burke.
When classes are conducted via communications media with little face-to-face contact between teachers and students, as is the case in distance education, problems are inevitable. Distance education is so depersonalized and distance education courses so tightly structured that students can feel stifled and lose motivation. Library media specialists can help by taking a proactive role in distance education efforts, from instructional design to media resource development to inservice training for staff.
NEED FOR CHANGE
Demographic and economic trends point to major problems for public education in the coming decade. Foremost among these trends is the inverse relationship between increasing K-12 enrollments and declining workforces. At the same time that many members of the currently aging workforce will be retiring, school systems will be hard pressed to hire replacements due to a decrease in eligible college graduates. These graduates, especially women, will also have a variety of other career options. Thus fewer teachers will be available to teach fewer courses, a situation that is likely to affect special populations of students most. These populations include an increasing proportion of black and Hispanic students, and students in small and rural schools. Finally, and most importantly, public education is experiencing a funding crisis exacerbated by a general lack of electorate and federal support for public education among a graying national population.
These trends have led to a growing interest in distance education, especially at the federal level. Distance education is seen both as a way to offer more equitable distribution of educational resources to special populations of students, and as a way to make instruction more cost-effective by sharing teachers and instructional materials. School library media specialists play an important role in projections for improving the quality of distance education.