Recently, ProQuest has discovered more and more librarian-teachers who are using the BookCart tool in creative and effective ways to promote inquiry-based learning in their schools. ProQuest wants to recognize these Digital Information Literacy leaders to inspire other eLibrary librarians and teachers to follow their lead and expand the growing culture of 21st-century learning in their schools.

In September ProQuest is pleased to recognize a Canadian teacher-librarian who uses eLibrary Canada and BookCarts to help achieve the goal of all librarians -- to partner with teachers and help them be more effective in raising student achievement in essential literacy skills and in knowledge of academic content.

Diane Gallagher-Hayashi is a teacher-librarian at Stelly's School in the Saanich School District on British Columbia's Vancouver Island. She's also a M.Ed. candidate in School Libraries with the University of Alberta in Edmonton and a contributor to Teacher Librarian magazine.

As a teacher-librarian, there were two things that I often found frustrating: students getting distracted while researching by all the extraneous "stuff" on the Internet, and teachers who gave research topics without checking to see if we actually had information.

I was thrilled to discover the BookCart feature when we started to subscribe to eLibrary. By creating BookCarts, I have found that students spend much more time on-task.

I have had students thank me on many occasions for creating a BookCart. Also, many of the teaching staff in my school will now email me their topics, knowing that I can create a BookCart in as short as a couple of hours.

Teachers are most appreciative because they know their students will always be able to access information easily and they can assign topics for homework knowing that their students can use BookCarts at home. My next goal is to get more teachers using the QuizCart feature.

Diane's work in her school includes more than 100 custom BookCarts created specially to meet the needs of teachers and students in every curriculum area. Many of these have been copied and adapted by ProQuest for our model BookCart collection so that you can share Diane's work and get started on your own collection.

You can view and copy these by learning more here, then clicking the ProQuest Carts tab, followed by the Canadian BookCarts folder.

Other exemplary librarians who have recently been recognized by ProQuest, along with their stories:

Ann Martha
Philadelphia School District, PA

Ana Banos
Sweetwater Union High School District, CA