School media libraries in the digital age: what are the challenges?

Abstract

We live in an era which requires changes in the way we communicate, establish relationships and live in the world. An era that connects us and offers a multitude of free possibilities that allows the Internet user to be a consumer and a producer, to integrate learning networks and to access relevant information in the life of every citizen. School libraries are aware of this reality, but how do they respond to such a challenge? This article examines online pages of school media libraries in the Porto metropolitan area. To understand the online dynamics of school libraries, adapted parameters from the authors Cremades Garcia and Jiménez García (2013) were adopted. The results show that the school media libraries response takes the target audience into account so there is a positive correlation between the apparent type of school (primary, elementary and high school) and how they draw their Web pages. However, they are still in a transformation process in order to respond to the actual requirements, because they are mainly considered to be user repository places rather than user building ones. Thus, questions and leading guidelines are proposed in order to contribute to these changes that involve education in general.