Editor's Welcome and
A Question About Our Changing Clientele

We hope you enjoy the materials we've collected for you, and urge you to consider becoming a JLSDE author yourself! Just click on "About JLSDE" if you'd like to know more about submitting a manuscript for consideration in a future issue. We also welcome suggestions for topics which you'd like to see covered in this publication, announcements of events of interest to library staff involved in supporting distance education, books to review, and URLs for our fledgling "Links"page.

Feedback needed: I have been thinking a lot recently about the "blurring of the lines" between on- and off-campus students which is occurring, at least at our institution. When I first started working with distance education students, it was pretty clear who they were, because these students were all signed up for courses taught at some site pretty far away from here. Now, however, we have an array of WebCT courses, satellite courses, etc., in which students from the surrounding community--sometimes even dorm residents! -- are enrolled... Other courses are divided, so that much of the work is done on the web, but some attendance on campus is required. In any event, it's become much less clear to me exactly which students I should be serving. I would love to hear from others who are also dealing with this issue, and especially from those who may have developed policies to handle such situations. I think that our readers would like to know what you're doing, too. Please email me with your comments, and--with your permission--I'll include a compilation in our next issue, which is planned for November.

Carol Goodson, Editor
State University of West Georgia