Remote Access

Background

Distance education was the impetus for the need for remote access to library resources. The original distance education courses were correspondent courses where students received and submitted their assignments through the mail. With the advent of the Internet, those courses were offered online through course management systems. Students using their computer have access to lectures, assignments and exams. Many online courses are taught asynchronously and students access the materials after the instructor uploads them to the course management system. The student submits the assignments by their due date through the course management system. Some courses are taught synchronously where students work in real time with the instructor. Another option is hybrid courses that are a mixture of on-line and classroom instruction. All distance education courses are taught using one of the three aforementioned models.

The Association of College and Research Libraries approved the Standards for Distance Learning Library Services in 2008. These standards provide guidelines for the types of services and necessary personnel libraries need to offer for distance education students. Distance education or online courses continue to grow at almost every university and academic libraries must be prepared to meet the needs of distance education students’ (ACRL, 2008).

The use of proxy servers allows library users to access library resources once the physical library is closed. A proxy server allows a person affiliated with the university to log into the network and access the library’s resources remotely. Most universities have a single sign-on that verifies the person either works or is a student at the university. Once the person is authenticated they can use the library’s resources and print, download or save articles from the databases.

The ability to digitize collections expanded the types of users could access. Special collections are no longer relegated to a forgotten area of the library with limited access for researchers. Universities can digitize materials from their special collections allowing researchers to access them without the need to make an appointment. There are several excellent digital libraries. The University of Georgia offers the Digital Library of Georgia and the Civil Rights Digital Library. Both of these collections include videos, photos, newspapers, maps, audio, and government materials. The Digital Public Library of America is the most recent example of digitized materials available for researchers. This digital library has collaborated with major universities and other digital libraries to build the collection. As they develop more partnerships, the number of digital collections available will substantially increase. The American Memory Collection from the Library of Congress offers digital collections on a number of topics from slavery to baseball.