What is OSLIS?

The Oregon School Library Information System (OSLIS) is a K-12 website providing access to quality licensed databases within an information literacy framework. It is designed for Oregon students and teachers, maintaining the school library at the heart of student research. OSLIS was established in 1998 and has operated with a variety of partners.

Currently OSLIS is a partnership between the Oregon Association of School Libraries (OASL) and the State Library of Oregon (SLO).

Goals

1. Provide access to high quality information resources.
2. Provide information literacy curriculum for students, teachers, librarians, and other educators.

Features and Benefits

• OSLIS is an environment designed by educators to guide students through the research process.
• The OSLIS Learn to Research model supports information literacy skills development.
• The OSLIS Citation Maker offers instruction and templates for accurately and responsibly citing resources.
• The OSLIS Find Information section provides access to a variety of reliable information resources (such as magazines, newspapers, journals, encyclopedias, e-books, and multimedia content) in one location.
• Thousands of age-appropriate articles with Lexile reading levels are available through subscription databases.
• Remote access allows students to do research anytime, anywhere.
• Equitable access to subscription resources is provided at no cost to Oregon's K-12 community of public and private schools and homeschoolers.

The OSLIS project is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon in association with the Oregon Association of School Libraries, a division of the Oregon Library Association.

This article provides more information about how and why OSLIS began.