Home | K-12 Online Resources from the State Library: A Lifeline for Education During the Pandemic

K-12 Online Resources from the State Library: A Lifeline for Education During the Pandemic

This page was initially established for the K-12 Online Resources Program from the State Library during the pandemic school closures and remote learning between March 2020 and July 2021. A brief history of the efforts and actions of the program during that period is below. Continued information about the K-12 Online Resources main program page; the links and information once provided on this page have since been retired.

Educators worked tirelessly in spring 2020 and throughout the 2020-21 school year to teach California’s kids as the entire state shifted to an online environment. The California K-12 Online Resources Program, with its vast libraries of educational content available off-campus, became a vital lifeline for many during that time.

Recognizing that district IT departments needed time to set up connectivity, Britannica, TeachingBooks, and ProQuest provided open access to their resources to any IP address in California. They also provided expanded access to online training for educators as teachers and students shifted gears to an online teaching environment.

The efforts paid off. The resources were accessed and searched more than 93 million times when schools and libraries were temporarily shuttered and moved to an online environment starting March 2020.

Once in-person school resumed in fall of 2021, ensuring continued access became a priority. Some providers’ platforms are available to local public libraries for all patrons. Other providers continued authentication for all California IP addresses going forward. The California State Library added science and technology resources from Gale for all school and libraries in January 2022, and then the PBS Video Library from ProQuest for all public schools in August 2022.

The California State Library would like to acknowledge and thank these providers for ensuring access to educational content for California children during the complicated period of remote learning and the pandemic crisis.

For more information, please see the main page for the K-12 Online Resources Program and join the State Library’s K-12 email newsletter list. Our newsletter goes out approximately monthly with information about trainings, new resources and other related information. General questions about the program may be addressed to K12.Resources@library.ca.gov.