The Digital Library for Earth System Education: A Progress Report from the DLESE Program Center

DLESE is a community-owned and governed digital library offering easy access to high quality electronic resources about the Earth system at all educational levels. Currently in its third year of development and operation, DLESE resources are designed to support systemic educational reform, and include web-based teaching resources, tools, and services for the inclusion of data in classroom activities, as well as a "virtual community center" that supports community goals and growth. "Community-owned" and "community-governed" embody the singularity of DLESE through its unique participatory approach to both library building and governance. DLESE is guided by policy development vested in the DLESE Steering Committee, and informed by Standing Committees centered on Collections, Services, Technology, and Users, and community working groups covering a wide variety of interest areas. This presentation highlights both current and projected status of the library and opportunities for community engagement. It is specifically structured to engage community members in the design of the next version of the library release. The current Version 1.0 of the library consists of a web-accessible graphical user interface connected to a database of catalogued educational resources (approximately 3000); a metadata framework enabling resource characterization; a cataloging tool allowing community cataloging and indexing of materials; a search and discovery system allowing browsing based on topic, grade level, and resource type, and permitting keyword and controlled vocabulary-based searches; and a portal website supporting library use, community action, and DLESE partnerships. Future stages of library development will focus on enhanced community collaborative support; development of controlled vocabularies; collections building and community review systems; resource discovery integrating the National Science Education Standards and geography standards; Earth system science vocabulary; georeferenced discovery; and ultimately, AAAS Benchmarks. DLESE is being designed from the outset to support resource discovery across a diverse, federated network of holdings and collections, including the Alexandria Digital Library Earth Prototype (ADL/ADEPT), NASA education collections, the DLESE reviewed collection, and other community-held resources that have been cataloged and indexed as part of the overall DLESE collections.