ELM stands for Electronic Library for Minnesota. It is a collection of databases funded by the state of Minnesota which can be used by public library patrons and in the schools. These databases are particularly important for schools with limited budgets who cannot provide subscriptions to databases. I'm sure we have all used databases for projects in our own education, and we have used them while teaching our students how to perform research. We know students have become accustomed to using Google, Bing, and Yahoo as search engines. We also know that the websites they find can be inappropriate or inaccurate. This is why it is so important to have databases available to students. We must do everything we can to help them succeed. This means providing accurate and reliable resources such as databases.
So we know that databases are important, and that ELM provides them for free. I want to make sure that you also know the current status of these databases. They may become unfunded, and no longer be available to use in our schools! In order to ensure that they remain available we simply need to advocate to our state representatives and to our governor. But an even simpler help is to go to elm4you.org and click on the link to share your ELM stories. I have also provided a link to the ELM Stories form on the left side of my blog. ELM stories simply tell the people who fund ELM the various ways that you have used ELM. Share the best stories you can remember!
Have you shared an ELM story? What was it?
