Resumen
The Earth system education community has started development of the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE). Earth system educators and key agency officials have recognized that the convergence of information and learning technologies, the maturation of basic digital library research, and the increasing ubiquity of the web technology in classrooms has made DLESE both possible and timely. DLESE will provide student-friendly access to a wide variety of archived and real-time data sets. A full array of digital services and human-mediated services for both users and contributors to the library is critical to the vision of DLESE as an active organization that both builds and serves its community. DLESE's community participation framework and participatory design process emphasize inclusiveness, promote a process of cultural change and are essentially the intersection of three primary functions: policy, operations, and community. As the library grows and matures, DLESE will face the special demands of scalability and sustainability that accompany such ambitious efforts. These demands will be met by effectively harnessing the energy of the Earth science community while simultaneously exploiting technological advances.