How to Implement Virtual Libraries in Your School: A Guide for Educators

Step-by-Step Plan to implement a Virtual Library in your school

Use this step-by-step plan to implement a virtual library in your school. 

1. Determine your needs

First, you need to determine your goals for implementing a virtual library. Consider what resource types you want to present to your students, teachers, or colleagues and how different audiences will use the library at any given time.

Look at the resources you already have, and determine if you are able to digitalize physical books, articles, and journals that are only available in print now. 

2. Choose a platform

Consider the platform that you choose carefully. You do not want to change your platform once you have set up your entire virtual library.

Symbaloo is a top option for saving, organizing, and distributing resources for virtual libraries. The visual interface and easy navigation make it easy to use for young students, traditional libraries, or 1:1 environments with many devices. Additionally, Symbaloo can save many types of online multimedia in one place, including videos, web documents, e-books, articles, and more. Learn more about how Symbaloo can help you set up your virtual library further down this page.

3. Create your collection

If you already have a physical collection, you can digitalize these resources and add them to your library. But you can also choose to gather digital resources that are already available on the internet. Determine how you want to organize your virtual library, including which users should have access to all your resources and which should not.

4. Introduce to users

Announce your new virtual library to students and other potential users. Depending on your setup, your users may require some training or explanation to access your resources and fully understand how to navigate your new virtual library. Communicate how to make optimal use of the library, where things can be found, and how to get assistance if needed.

5. Place & promote the virtual library

Make sure your virtual library is easily accessible to users. If you use Symbaloo, set your Webspace as the browser homepage for computers and 1:1 devices. If you use a different platform, you may need to install software on devices or ensure accessibility in another way. In addition, highlight the benefits of the virtual library and encourage teachers to use it in their lesson plans.

6. Regularly review and update your collection

After completing your virtual library, keep updating your collection with new books, journals, and multimedia. Some materials may be outdated after a few years, or some suit some other library place better. 

7. Provide user support

Some users of your library might encounter some issues regarding your virtual library. They might struggle to find some resources or notice that some resources are not accessible anymore. Ensure a support system is in place to make adjustments and fix problems that may arise in the future.

8. Collaborate with other libraries

Finally, you can approach other libraries to collaborate, which may involve user surveys for feedback or sharing resources between the two libraries to offer your users a broader range of materials. It also allows you to find the latest trends in virtual libraries. Using technology like a virtual library opens new doors and creates new opportunities for collaboration and mutually-beneficial partnerships. 

Creating your virtual library with Symbaloo

Symbaloo is a powerful tool for creating and organizing your virtual library. It is a web-based content management system that allows you to store collections of links, videos, online documents, and web resources into a visual grid-like structure called a Webmix. Learn how you can use Symbaloo as your virtual library.

Learn more about virtual libraries.
➡️ Watch the Shannon Millers webinar:  Creating virtual library Spaces for Blended Learning
➡️ What is a virtual library, and how can I use them in my school?
➡️ How to Combine 1:1 Classrooms and Virtual Libraries in Your Lesson Plans

Organize resources by subject or topic

Symbaloo allows you to organize resources, links, and online documents in a visually appealing way. For example, you could create a webmix for literature resources, another for science resources, and a third for history resources. Teachers and students can quickly access these Webmixes by clicking the tabs in the tool. Within the Webmix, you can choose to group books by subtopics or highlight specific subtopics with the marker feature.

Add multimedia content

Apart from links, you can add videos, online documents, images, and sounds to your Webmixes. Multimedia helps to make the virtual library engaging and exciting for your students. Apart from that, multimedia can help students understand the topic in a more comprehensive and meaningful way.

Collaborate with others

Symbaloo allows you to collaborate on the Webspaces and its Webmixes. Collaborators can change and update the webmixes, while Webspace Administrators can also manage the Webspace itself in the Webspace Dashboard. Collaboration helps librarians and teachers serve their students with the most relevant and helpful resources on specific topics.

Customize the interface

Wandering in a traditional library is fun, but sometimes people need help finding the right resources quickly. By customizing your Symbaloo Webmixes, users can easily navigate and find the resources they need. You can choose to add images or logos to your resources, customize color boundaries, add colored markers, and choose to group similar books.

Share resources with others

All of your Symbaloo resources are published on your custom Webspace URL, making everything easily accessible for parties you wish to share with. Keep your URL publicly available, or, add your own users and create a private virtual library.

Conclusion

Symbaloo provides a powerful platform for creating your virtual library. Librarians can organize resources by subject or topic, share resources with others, collaborate with colleagues, add multimedia content, and customize the interface. By using Symbaloo in a virtual library, librarians can help ensure that students and teachers can access the most relevant and engaging resources for their needs.