“Educators from more than 100 institutions of learning are working on projects that will expand the National Science Digital Library by creating new portals, incorporating other libraries, increasing accessibility of information, and building new interactive learning environments. The NSDL is intended to support science education at all levels, from pre-kindergarten to post-doctoral, and will include coverage of mathematics, the sciences, engineering and technology. NSF staffer Lee Zia says, ‘We have a commitment over the next four to five years to grow this program, but future funding is a little bit unknown right now. We have high hopes, but that’s something we don’t have a lot of control over.’ – USA Today, January 3.” From NewsScan.
The TeleRead take: A valuable project. But let’s not forget the humanities–or the fact that students deserve access to copyrighted books of the kind that the NSDL probably won’t include. Other issues come up, too–not just long-range funding but also integration with local schools and libraries. Those are very much within TeleRead territory. America needs a well-stocked national digital library system that would smoothly bring together different disciplines. And other countries should have the equivalent.
