I am launching a campaign to make our libraries' and librarians' presences more evident to instructors and students using SLN ANGEL and easier to sustain.  I hope to bring these ideas up at WGIL SIG meeting on Friday.  We need to make a concerted statement as SUNYLA to SLN to get some movement on these items.

The over-riding principle here is to make sure that online students feel like they are getting a "real" college education.  Just as one knows they are on a college campus when they see a college library in the area, then our online students should know they are engaged in college education in part because they see a college library in the proximity of their online courses.

So the first proposal is that SLN rename the "Resources" tab for every SUNY course to say "Library," or at the very least "Library/ Resources."

Second, for every college, add a link to the respective college library homepage above the link to SUNYConnect that currently exists.

To the extent that is organizationally feasible,  customization privileges should be extended to the campus and campus library to add and edit other links and nuggets/ widgets to the Library tab for their own college.

In a related vein, Penn State has built a Library Tools utility for use with ANGEL and they have shared their code and documentation.  Library Tools is similar to LibGuides.  It would be a huge benefit to make PSU Library Tools available in SLN.  We should propose that SLN review and test the code and implement it for us if at all workable.

Jim Nichols