1. Children’s Digital Libraries developments and trends LIDA 2009 Ivanka Stričević Assistant professor University of Zadar, Croatia istricev@unizd.hr

2. Model of the Information Search Process (Kuhlthau) Tasks Initiation Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------→ Feelings uncertainly optimism confusion clarity sense of satisfaction or (affective) frustration direction/ disappointment doubt confidence Thoughtsvague-------------------------------------→focused (cognitive) -----------------------------------------------→ increased interest Actions seeking relevant information----------------------------→seeking pertinent information (physical) exploring documenting

3. Digital natives, Net … Dot… Google…. G….generation A generation that is growing up in a world dominated by the Internet More comfortable working on a keyboard than writing with a pen; more familiar with reading from a screen than from paper Children are not information gurus (Todd, LIDA 2006).  They show a high level of skills in using computers  They do not possess information literacy skills Are IL skills enough for the creation of new knowledge?  Guided Inquiry – Learning in the 21st century (Kuhlthau, LIDA 2006)

4. Children and Internet Evans, LIDA 2004 Todd, LIDA 2006 Digital and virtual libraries have created complex and fluid, networked, interactive and unpredictable information environment All have to learn - librarians, teachers, parents, and not children only How children use Internet? How they would organise information on Internet?

5. Children’s information seeking behaviors Many research Cool (LIDA 2006)  Children are not just “little adults”  Youth information-seeking behavior : theories, models, and issues / edited by Mary K. Chelton and Colleen Cool. Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2004. Early 1980-ies  How to teach children to use new technologies – the idea was to “adapt” the user to the system Late 1980-ies  Development of more general models of information search process (Kuhlthau, 1988)

6. International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) Weeks (LIDA, 2006)  Digitised books from all around the world to improve mutual understanding, promote tolerance among children of all nationalities, various languages and cultural background  An old idea but new way in which books are made available to children by using technologies of the 21st century Bilal (LIDA, 2006)  Investigated one component of ICDL – its cross-cultural component in a framework of children’s understanding of the ICDL system design representations

7. LIDA 2006 Part II. Building a digital library for children and young adults Inclusion of young users in design process (Large et al.) Information searching as an object of learning and its affect on new teaching strategies in schools (Limberg) Using the Internet in authentic learning situation (McNally) Librarians and teachers as research partners (Harada) the concept of hyper library (Rosenstand & Rosenstand) Social and psychological issues in the design of children’s and youth digital libraries related to reading promotion (Garcia) Managing e-book collections in children’s and schools’ libraries (Lonsdale) Croatian mirror site of ICDL (Slobođanac) Italian project on building a local history digital collection for a little town (Corradini) Serbian children’s digital library (Injac)

8. Situation in Croatia Not many of children’s librarians were present at LIDA conferences Some attempts in practice – presented on poster sessions  Building of children’s library collections of electronic materials available on Internet  Developing small collections of digitized materials

9. Croatian public libraries in general still have not created separate web pages for children and young adults!!! Croatian children librarians - more concerned with children’s access to Internet and how to manage its uncertain environment, than to move to the phase of developing ond/or using of digital libraries for children and young people