The Unquiet Librarian

In a nutshell, Ruth and I had a “moment” this week that honestly caused us to scratch our heads and then consider banging our heads against the wall (thankfully, our wise clerk, Tammy, talked us out of that!). 

Many of you, especially in the 7-12 secondary school scene, will relate to the frustration we felt this week:  the struggle to get all teachers on board with your library program and to “buy” into the great services and resources your program has to offer.  Ruth and I wrote to Joyce Valenza, one of the most forward thinking media specialists out there in Library2.0 Land.  She graciously offered to help us brainstorm with our community of school librarians by writing a post about our plight (and I suspect, the plight of many.) 

We are not afraid to ask for help because we care fiercely about our library program and nurturing it so that we as librarians and a library program truly make a difference in our learning community at our school.   Many may say, “Well, you know that is how it is in high school.”  Well, I don’t care how it HAS been—Ruth and I care about how it COULD be and SHOULD be!

Yes, we definitely have a positive impact on many students and teachers, but Ruth and I know we have the potential to do more.  With a faculty that has increased by over 50 members this year, we are finding we are having difficulty getting as many teachers from all subject areas into our media center this academic year.  We are especially troubled that seasoned teachers as well as rookie teachers are sending their students to the world wide web instead of working with us to develop pathfinders and utilizing library resources first. 

We provide hands on instruction and incorporate balanced resources–books, our virtual books, databases, quality websites; teachers and students seem pleased when we work with them on a research project.  Yet many teachers do not seem interested in our offers of help or fall back into the “send’m to the web” habit after working with us (and seeming very pleased with what we have done!).  Many teachers comment with amazement that they have never had librarians do what we do for them, so effort is definitely not the issue here. 

We are baffled.  I think this challenge goes beyond the frequent explanation that teachers are under pressure to teach in a manner that is geared toward standardized test prep and being sure to “cover” material, a pedagogy that leaves little room for project based learning and inquiry.  We are a Max Thompson “Learning Focused School”—should research, questioning, and inquiry not be vital parts of the way teachers teach and students learn?  While high school has always suffered from the “Lone Ranger” syndrome, neither Ruth nor I have experienced this problem to the degree we are this year.

Joyce has posted some initial ideas and strategies to help everyone who may be looking for ideas to get their teachers to buy into databases, books, and other great web 2.0 resources.  I am happy to report that we are already doing a good bit of this, but of course, there is always room for improvement. 

Here is what Joyce had to say and where we are with the suggested strategy:

• Joyce says: I am surprised that so many young teachers I meet get through their own pre-service research without ever discovering a database.  Some I meet reveal that they Googled through their undergrad research.  That’s okay, I suppose if they used it to discover quality content.  At the beginning of each school year I am lucky to be granted a full day with new teachers to discuss our research culture, our resources, our expectations.  I suspect our administrators are happy that I can fill a day with this stuff.   So are we!  I honestly cannot fathom how you can go through four years of college without using a research database, but that is another discussion for another day.  I agree, though, that teachers’ lack of experience makes them reluctant to use something they feel they don’t know.  If you don’t come to the library, though, how are you going to learn the database and/or skill?  We as teachers should always be open to learning, especially if it is about something that will make us better teachers  and that will help our students.
• Joyce says:  We have an eighth grade unit on evaluation that we’ve placed in the social studies curriculum.  I present this PowerPoint on evaluating sources (I know, it needs a makeover), and I show a bit of the filmI worked on for Schlessinger Video.  While the Georgia Performance Standards are jam packed with many skills and learning standards, very few tie into information literacy at the 9-12 level.  If more media specialists were included on the committees (state and local level) that write these standards, perhaps we then could have a louder voice in making sure information literacy skills are infused more seamlessly across the curriculum in an authentic and relevant manner.
• Joyce says:  I volunteer to assess students’ preliminary works cited pages for major papers and projects.  This takes some of the work and onus off the classroom teacher and promotes my efforts as an instructional partner.  Students know my expectations are high, that they include use of databases, and they are a little afraid of my scrutiny.   While I truly admire this initiative, there is no way Ruth and I would have time to do this.  We are already up to three lunch periods and 1100 students; our other high schools typically deal with 2000+ students and four lunch periods that last an hour.  Ruth and I already work about an hour extra each day, plus we rarely take a lunch and get no planning period.  However, we do provide intensive NoodleTools instruction and hands on assistance with our students to help students make sure they cite their sources correctly.  We have already had positive feedback this year from our English teachers on our efforts in this area.
Joyce says:  We have to work with teachers to ensure their project rubrics include use of quality sources in general. When it makes sense, the rubrics should include use of relevant databases. I agree 110% on this…..but many teachers do not seem to want help or do not seem interested in our suggestion for incorporating criteria about the use of quality information sources.   How can we help our teachers see as a partner who can assist them in the creation of rubrics or as someone who can be sounding board for creating quality rubrics?
Joyce says:  We need to do better database marketing.  My students did a film for me last year and I did a Voicethread I’d love folks to contribute to.  But having seen many new streaming video strategies I want to make a better one this year.  Imagine if we could create some in the far more clever style of CommonCraft.  I still want to create a LibraryTube for us to share our best video efforts.  Again, I agree 100%.  Ruth and I hope that we can do more creative “marketing” as part of our Media 21 classes we are beginning this year—podcasts, videos, tutorials created with Camtasia, VoiceThreads—we are all for tapping into Web 2.0 tools to better promote our goods!
Joyce says:  We need widgets/gadgets so that teachers and students can pull the databases they most need into their iGoogle pages.  Vendors, are you listening?  AMEN!  For us, though, we have to first get our users to actually create iGoogle pages.  We are amazed at how little our patrons actually use web 2.0 tools we take for granted—del.icou.us, blogs, iGoogle, etc.  I do applaud EBSCOhost and GALE, though, for recently adding RSS feeds for searches.  Again, though, we are finding that few of our teachers or students even know what RSS is—again, part of our mission to educate….we hope to be in a position for 2008-09 to provide training for our patrons that will educate and empower them to the power of Web 2.0!
Joyce says:  We need an affordable federated search (to search across all our online resources–search tools, OPAC, databases).  This federated search should not cost as much as a database itself.  It should not force us to make further budget sacrifices.  It should understand the idiosyncratic nature of the many databases we own.  It should make it easier for teachers and students to discover the beauty of databases.  Another loud AMEN from us!  We also need vendors to deliver on their promises when we purchase a federated search….ahem…..GALE/CENGAGE….are you listening?????
Joyce says:  We need to de-crimilalize use of Google in libraries. Sometimes we act like the research Gestapo in our scrutiny of search behavior.  Google works.  Google rocks. And yes, we can all use it better.  We have made steps on this front by tapping into the power of Google Books and creating our own Google Library account that we incorporate into our pathfinders with the Google Library RSS feed.  We also use Google Scholar to tap into JSTOR and make it more user friendly to our high school students.  We would love to do mini-lessons on how to search Google effectively….but teachers don’t feel they can give up the time for it even though they agree it needs to be taught.  A symptom of the fallout from testing and NCLB.
Joyce says:  We need to do a better job describing our resources.  No teacher (or kid) knows what EBSCO is or what individual databases live it its large suite.  Our pathfinders must bust these tools out of their traps and describe them in teacher- and kid-friendly language.  This is an area that we will work on—the link Joyce has provided will be another tool in our “toolbox” that we use to try to take something so abstract and make it concrete for all of our patrons.

Now here are a few musings I have……..

• The key issue is here expectations….it is not enough the media specialists have the expectation that we will be the heart of learning.  Our teachers, administrators, and students also need to have this expectation.  Perhaps if this can be conveyed more overtly by all of us faculty members, then it will become a reality and not just an empty mantra.
• Perhaps NCATE needs to consider incorporating information literacy as a required course or competency type requirement for undergraduate teachers.  As Joyce alluded, it is astonishing at how lacking our new teachers are in this area (and I am not knocking them—it is just a fact). 
• What if Google Scholar made it more affordable for public school libraries to tie in their databases to Google Scholar the way many college libraries do?  This would go a long way in marketing our products. 
• If library programs can become more integral parts of School Improvement Plans, I think teachers, students, and parents are more likely to see the library importance of media centers in student achievement and lifelong learning.  I would be thrilled if our library program could be incorporated as a vital part of our 2008-09 SIP!

At the end of the day, it is our students who suffer when the library program and resources are not a regular part of their instruction and learning activities in ALL subject areas.  I hope that this post will help us all think about additional strategies we can devise to make our programs more effective and for our programs to truly reach all students!

The latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, “Online Activities and Pursuits:  Information Searches That Solve Problems”, revealed some surprising findings that challenge traditional beliefs about who uses libraries; the report also seems to allay fears that libraries may be losing their relevance in the digital age.   The report highlights these key findings: 

• Libraries drew visits by more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes, not just the problems mentioned in the survey.
• Young adults in the tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30)  led the pack. Compared to their elders, Gen Y members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information and in general patronage for any purpose.
• Young adults are the ones who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library.

“These findings turn our thinking about libraries upside down. Librarians have been asked whether the Internet makes libraries less relevant. It has not. Internet use seems to create an information hunger and it is information-savvy young people who are the most likely to visit libraries,” noted Leigh Estabrook, Dean and Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois, co-author of a report on the results.  She added that Internet users with broadband were much more likely to patronize libraries than those without broadband access to the Internet (61% vs. 28%).

The survey did seem to indicate the problem of the digital divide and traditional issues of equity of literacy (as demonstrated in Deborah’s Brandt’s ground-breaking researching in Literacy in American Lives).  The report summary states:

A major focus of this survey was on those with no access to the Internet (23% of the population) and those with only dial-up access (13% of the population). This “low-access” population is poorer, older, and less well-educated than the cohort with broadband access at home or at work. They are less likely to visit government offices or libraries under any circumstances. And they are more likely to rely on television and radio for help than are high-access users.  

What do you think are the implications of this study for us as media specialists and educators?  How can librarians (school and public) better reach those who are not using the library for information?  How can we bridge the gaps highlighted in this report?
 

While I am on the “high” of my “Library 2.0″ moments of the week, I want take time to jot down a few thoughts!

Google Scholar, Google Library, Google Books, Del.icio.us

I used a combination of Web 2.0 tools to locate information sources not in our collection as well as to tap into existing information sources we do have as part of our virtual collection.    I then integrated the RSS feeds for these resources into a pathfinder I created for one of our Honors English teachers.

Conversations I’ve had recently with UGA librarian Nadine Cohen and UGA Professor Mary Ann Fitzgerald have had me thinking about how I could harness the power of Google to point students to quality information sources with more ease.  First, I used Google Scholar and Google Books to search for nonfiction texts that we did not have access to through our databases or print collection.  I then created a “My Google Books Library” to create an online collection that the students could access through a RSS feed link. 

If you have not used Google Books, you MUST check it out!  Books are searchable and some can even be downloaded as PDF files; plain text options are also available for viewing.  Students also get “similar books” suggestions available through Google Books, and they also have bibliographic data available at their fingertips for that particular book.  Students can also subscribe to our RSS feed for this feature and keep up with the latest additions to our Google Books!  These tools are powerful because they provide access to materials you might not be able to obtain in print and increase accessibility to these resources to EVERYONE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

The other tool we have been using as part of our research pathfinders this year is del.icio.us.  Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking web 2.0 tool that allows you to bookmark and catalog your favorite web resources with “tags”—think of tags as keywords or subject headings.  You can access these resources from any computer—not just your home computer.  For this assignment, I tagged some articles from our GALE Virtual Reference Library (GALE is the only vendor right now that we can “infomark” directly to articles, but we are hoping more vendors will get on board with this feature). 

I then used Google Scholar to search for scholarly articles related to our research topics.  While we can’t use Google Scholar to interface with our databases in the ways that college libraries can at this point in time, we do have access to JSTOR, a college level database of scholarly research articles covering all disciplines.  Because JSTOR is a vendor partnered with Google Scholar, we can use Google Scholar to search for articles and then “tag” those articles with our del.ici.ous account.  While some would argue doing this takes away the element of students searching for articles on their own, I would counterargue that this method is more of an “entry” into the database that will hopefully entice students to further explore that information source once they have acquired a “comfort zone” by looking at what we have put on the “menu.” 

The teacher was extremely excited about these new tools and felt it was a major improvement on the research pathfinder from last year (we collaborated in 2006 on this same assignment).  The students will be in here tomorrow and Friday, and I think once they have time to get “immersed” in these tools, they too will feel excited and energized about the research project. 

It makes me feel good to know that I can provide our students access to new materials we don’t physically own!  I also am excited that I can use web 2.0 tools to help my students “mine” or find an entry into quality information sources we own but that may be intimidating to students.  I hope that this hybrid of web 2.0 tools will make our database resources and books seem “cooler” and more relevant to our students.

That is today’s Library 2.0 roundup!

One university professor has decided to take Wikipedia and turn it into a teaching tool for her students in her environmental history course at the University of Washington-Bothell.  After perusing Wikipedia, Dr. Martha Groom noticed that the information was lacking in information related to topics she covers in her course.  Consequently, she decided to do away with the end of the term research paper, and instead, students are now required to write a complete entry on a course topic or to do a major edit on an existing topic related to the course syllabus.

Dr. Groom cites several benefits to this assignment:

• For her students, the Wikipedia experiment was “transformative,” and students’ writing online proved better than the average undergrad research paper.
• Knowing their work was headed for the Web, not just one harried professor’s eyes, helped students reach higher — as did the standards set by the volunteer “Wikipedians” who police entries for accuracy and neutral tone.  The exercise also gave students a taste of working in the real world of peer-reviewed research.
• Most of the articles were well received, but Groom said some students caught heat from Wikipedia editors for doing exactly what college students are trained to do: write an argumentative, critical essay.

Dr. Groom also feels that this assignment presents a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about using quality and authoritative information sources as well as evaluating information.  In addition, she believes her students have a better understanding of how to go the extra mile to do secondary research that goes beyond “surface” level research.  However, Dr. Groom is disappointed that the Wikipedia editors have been sometimes “rude” in their responses to student entries.

You can read more about Dr. Groom’s experiences by checking out these links:

• Yahoo News
• Ars Technica
• CNN Technology

I think that Dr. Groom has had a stroke of instructional genius here!  What do you as teachers think about this assignment?  I have emailed Dr. Groom to see if we can get a copy of her assignment guidelines.  If any of you are interested in collaborating with Ruth or me on this kind of research project for your students, please let us know…this assignment could be incredibly beneficial on many fronts and would definitely cover many of the Georgia Performance Standards that you are required to teach in your courses.

Buffy

This week has been an exhilarating and exhausting experience–Ruth, my partner in library adventures, and I have been part of our district’s three day training for Follett Destiny Library Manager 7.5.  We are absolutely thrilled with the new circulation software our district has purchased for all of us—our new web-based circulation software provides our patrons access to the catalog at home, and it is loaded with many powerful features to help us better manage our collection and catalog.  We were fortunate to be trained by a former media specialist, Ann Shaver!   I love that our students can now browse our catalog from home, plus our district purchased a “state standards” search feature/enhancment that is fabulous—this is a tool that will help us with collection development AND help us demonstrate how our collection/library supports instruction and student achievement.

As I was both basking in the glory of and recovering from our training and first live day with Destiny in my comfy big chair here at home, I happened upon this thought-provoking article by Chris Harris at School Library Journal called “A New Word for Catalog.”  Harris first tries to unpack the term “catalog” and then raises this provocative question:

What if we could turn the library catalog into a library portal? Stop acting as a pass-through and become an experience! One of my favorite catalogs to look through comes from Williams-Sonoma. In addition to the surrogate records for their products, they provide an enhanced experience that includes recipes that show you how to use the products. An experience is probably best defined here as being a destination. You don’t just go to the catalog as a pass-through listing of surrogates, but you linger for original content as well. In fact, you may return even after acquiring the “real thing” to make further use of the original content. Amazon.com has created this through reviews, favorites lists, and “you might also like” suggestions. Returning to the Amazon catalog has a purpose and a meaning.

I was just saying to Ruth today how cool it would be if an OPAC could make book suggestions to students in the same vein as Amazon!  What do you librarians think about this concept?  I feel that Destiny is as cutting edge as it gets in terms of current school library OPACs, but do you think that something along the lines of what Harris envisions is a real possibility in five to ten years?  Do you think that this type of OPAC could have a significant impact in how our students use our libraries?  Does anyone know if Follett has something like this in the “development” works for the future?