CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 75, November 2012
The National Diet Library, as the sole national library in Japan, provides a wide range of programs to support the activities of domestic and foreign libraries. One such is an e-Learning program for librarians. This article focuses on the contents, response from trainees and future prospects of the e-Learning programs of the NDL available on the Internet.
Topics and contents of the e-Learning programs
The e-Learning programs of the NDL (https://ndl.secure.force.com/) started in 2006. They are available to anyone working in all kinds of libraries inside and outside Japan, although some courses with limited quota require application. The two courses "(6) Various old Japanese books" and "(7) Basic knowledge for digitization of materials" are available without application. All courses come in Japanese only.
As of FY2012, there are seven courses:
(1) Basic idea of preservation and conservation
We outline the fundamental concept of preservation and conservation, appropriate methods for preserving and using materials, including the factors of deterioration and the storage environment.
Screen image of contents of "Basic idea of preservation and conservation"
(2) Science and technology information - introduction
This course gives an outline of scientific and technological resources, major institutions and libraries collecting them and some useful reference tools, including explanation of the workflow from identifying the needed documents to obtaining them. Through this course you can acquire basic knowledge about science and technology information. (*The course is not available in FY2012.)
Screen image of contents of "Science and technology information introduction"
(3) Science and technology information - reports produced under grants-in-aid for scientific research, doctoral dissertations and standards
In this course, trainees learn the characteristics of these materials and how to search them, taking some scientific and technical materials as examples, especially reports produced under grants-in-aid for scientific research, doctoral dissertations and standards. The course is more suitable for those who complete "(2) Science and technology information - introduction." (*The course is not available in FY2012.)
Screen image of contents of "Science and technology information - reports produced under grants-in-aid for scientific research, doctoral dissertations and standards"
(4) How to research information on economy, trade and industry
This course introduces useful tools for economic and industrial reference service for business, market, consumer and company information such as a wide range of statistics and how to search them.
Screen image of contents of "How to research information on economy, trade and industry"
(5) Libraries and Copyright
The purpose of this course is to learn basic knowledge of the copyright system required for library work. Taking library services such as reading, photoduplication and loan as examples, it explains the process of how to deal with copyright.
Screen image of contents of "Libraries and Copyright"
(6) Various old Japanese books
As the first step in bibliographical study, this program explains the history of the forms of Japanese books, introducing many styles of old Japanese books. The teaching materials are reproduced from a virtual exhibition on the National Institute of Japanese Literature (NIJL) website.
Screen image of contents of "Various old Japanese books"
(7) Basic knowledge for digitization of materials
The purpose of this course is to learn basic knowledge for planning digital archive projects, techniques and copyright handling for digitization. The contents of this course are based on the group training materials "Training Program on digitization of materials" held in FY 2011.
Top page of contents of "Basic knowledge for digitization of materials"
The e-Learning system of the NDL
The NDL shifted to providing training courses, using "Software as a Service (SaaS)" in 2010, aiming at reduction of operational costs and flexible adoption of new functions. The e-Learning system had its interface and other functions renewed in 2010 and 2012, enabling trainees to study more comfortably on the visually easier-to-navigate screens.
The contents of the training courses are produced in accordance with the e-Learning standard format "Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)," so it is possible to modify a system without a drastic revision of the contents.
Trainees' response
A total of over 5,000 librarians took the courses in the five years since 2006. The number of trainees is increasing year by year and in 2012, 1,400 librarians are expected to participate in the programs. The courses are highly evaluated by librarians. For example, according to the answers to the questionnaire for evaluation the NDL asks trainees to fill in after completion of the courses, an average 84% of trainees responded that they felt comfortable about the training. Especially, many trainees described the benefit of the e-Learning programs that are available whenever and wherever you connect to the Internet. Such reception reveals that the e-Learning programs offer opportunities of building up their skills for more and more librarians who usually cannot attend onsite training because of their busy work schedules.
In addition, the NDL receives many requests to make all courses application-free, because at present some courses easily reach the fixed quota in the first week of advertisement and unfortunately we cannot accept a lot of applicants. We make efforts to provide opportunities to as many librarians as possible, but, a limited number of students enables down-to-earth support and follow-up to the trainees. Although the NDL does not have specialized staff (mentors) to support the training, we set up the FAQ and an information desk for the training courses, and go in with the writers of the contents to quickly respond to questions from trainees. We should think more about the balanced implementation of courses with or without quota.
Future prospects
Five years have passed since the e-Learning started, and there have been various changes in the topics of the training courses along with revision of the system and development of the study. Naturally the contents of the training courses should be updated to include new trends in these fields. In FY2012, the following three courses will be revised: "Basic idea of preservation and conservation," "Science and technology information - introduction" and "Science and technology information - reports produced under grants-in-aid for scientific research, doctoral dissertations and standards." Other than the e-Learning programs, the NDL provides group training and dispatches our staff to other libraries in Japan for training. The information is available on http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/library/training_programs.html. In a part of the group training courses, trainees are sometimes required to take the specified e-Learning courses in preparation for the group training ("Blended learning"). In the future, we will promote improvement of training courses, taking advantage of the strength of the three styles of the training courses, so as to enhance the learning effectiveness as much as possible.
As previously noted, the e-Learning programs of the NDL are available for librarians living outside Japan and you can take some courses without application. Do visit our website on the http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/library/training_programs.html and utilize our e-Learning courses!
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