To the benefit of both: Academic librarians connect with middle school teachers through a digitized history resources workshop

Abstract

A workshop sponsored by the North Carolina Collection at East Carolina University to familiarize middle school teachers with the Eastern Carolina Digital History Exhibits and provide lesson plans for the site revealed (1) the need for teachers and librarians to work more closely together in the design and use of new digital history resources and (2) the benefits of cooperative efforts. Although the K-12 community generally welcomes digital resources, teachers face important challenges, such as redesigning the curriculum. What the teachers had to say, as well as a few other unexpected findings, proved beneficial to the librarians in creating sites. Small workshops were shown to be useful to both teachers and librarians.