AARL

Position or purpose: situating the library in a webbed world

Madeleine McPherson
mcpherso@usq.edu.au.nospam

Abstract: The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) is building on its long experience in distance education to design for the delivery of a comprehensive range of teaching, learning and support services in a web environment. The author is a university librarian who has also taken on the role of directing the corporate project that is developing USQ's vision of the eUniversity. From the perspective of this project, she discusses the challenges for librarians of integrating with other functions to meet the needs of students studying 'flexibly'. What is the role of the library for an online student who may only know the university as a website? What will be the expectations of those students, formed by familiarity with commercial applications on the web, and can they be met without lowering academic standards? The article discusses some of the implications - legal, pedagogical, technical - of working in a web environment to deliver learning flexibly.

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