Software designed to be encyclopedic, even when specific to a single discipline, tends to lack depth. Although it often includes helpful sound, video and graphic components, searches for specific pieces of relevant information are frequently unsuccessful. Internet searches, on the other hand, tend to be both broadly generalized and deeply specialized. The difficulties posed left one student researcher foundering with his question of how and when cancer was first identified as a specific condition. Although he found no lack of information sources, none of them struck the middle ground of information he needed for the initial pursuit of his topic.
Difficulties related to the third and fourth strategies are somewhat different.
However, the springboard for its best use is a strong and readily accessible local collection. Earmarking additional resources, such as Title VI, for building that local collection is certainly a step in the right direction. The difficulty is that building the core print collection for the level of research required by Inquiry is a demanding task. This means it is a slow process under ordinary conditions. The purpose of this project was to identify and build within a one-year time frame, a core, high school print collection for Inquiry.