ExploraConnect as a part of our outreach aims to share teaching resources for locations that may have a computer lab, but no organized structure for educating their patrons on the use of this technology. I’ll use the librarian and staff at the Dine’ College Library in Shiprock NM as a case study for this type of work.

The Dine’ College Library operates by design as a resource for their students, but because of it’s rural location the library also operates by default as a community resource. The library has limited staff, and much of their valuable time is spent answering computer related questions from their patrons, students and community alike. Though the staff does their level best to answer each and every question accurately and thoroughly, they have no training for these all important digital inclusion questions.

My hope is to provide the library with the resources to put on a weekly or monthly basic computer skills class. Though initially this may take more of the library staff’s valuable time, in the weeks or months after staff should be able to better answer questions and patrons will have a learning framework to be able to explore the digital landscape on their own, reducing the burden for the library and including the patrons in the wider digital world. In my next post I will look a little closer at how ExploraConnect intends to provide these resources and where you can find them yourself.