A Site for Sore Eyes

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Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 05/01/2000

Birmingham Groves (MI) High School Media Center: www.birmingham.k12.mi.us/gromc1

Clarity and simplicity are often last on the list when it comes to thinking about Web site design. That's why Birmingham Groves Media Center's site is such a relief. No queasy-colored backgrounds or flashing graphics, just a neat green table on a white background that's easy to read.

Necessity Is the Mother of Invention: Birmingham Groves is a well-funded, culturally diverse high school of 1,250 students in suburban Detroit. Groves' media specialist, Roberta Magid Sibley (rs02bps@birmingham.k12.mi.us) says the site was first created in 1998, when the staff felt frustrated by Yahoo! as the default page on the two heavily used computers in the library. Something more specific to the student's needs was required. So they came up with their own site that would lead students to a broad selection of resources, such as "Encyclopedia," which links to Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Multimedia, Britannica, and World Book Online, as well as "Periodicals," which links to Electric Library, ProQuest, SIRS Researcher, InfoTrac, and FirstSearch.

Creating a Road Map: Sibley says that the Groves staff became frustrated with "students just using search engines to look for information without any thought about the quality or veracity of the sites," so she set up a "teacher assignments" page of her own and introduced it at a faculty meeting. Teachers are just beginning to make contributions.

Proof of the Pudding: Sibley knows that when it comes to electronic resources and high school kids, most media specialists have to prove themselves. She recalls one skeptical student who was struggling through the Web. Told that Sibley was an "information expert," the student asked for help. "I showed her how to search the sites by keyword and she found what she needed right away," Sibley says. "Her comment to me was something like, 'Wow, you're fast and you do know what you're doing.' It takes time for the students to gain trust and realize that librarians can be information experts."