Adirondack Community College

Samantha Berry

CC BY-ND

How is OER shaping your professional role as a librarian?

As a librarian, OER has given me a fresh realm of materials and tools to familiarize myself with so I can facilitate their access by students and faculty members.  It complicates this task somewhat, as most databases have standardized their interfaces as far as the delimiters they offer, how the interfaces look (basic vs advanced search screens), and the types of searching language and shorthand they support (most of my college’s databases support Boolean search phrases, and the use of asterisks and quotation marks). OER at this time are offered across many websites hosted internationally, each with  a different interface supporting different levels of searching complexity.

Though this is overwhelming, even at this early stage in my career I know that with time will come familiarity and comfort, and with those will come the ability to devise best strategies for my students and colleagues to make use of this rich universe of resources. I am hopeful that one day searching for OER resources will be as simple and rewarding as searching any of the big name databases as far as finding the desired resources.