I’ve been up since 1:30 AM and I don’t know why — except that Holiday Inn beds aren’t as good as Marriott beds. So the next time your surgeon says something about staying in a Holiday Inn Express, get up and walk away.
Tomorrow, I’ll be speaking at the Illinois School Library Media Association conference and I don’t want to just roll off a standard keynote address. Although I often speak at school library media conferences, I usually do not speak specifically to management, functions, and vision for libraries. I’m probably not qualified. Usually I stick to the “Here’s how information is changing…” line. But I may do it differently tomorrow.
I have two questions for the librarian readers out there:
- I remember, years ago, that libraries were compared to the hub of a wheel, and the wheel was the school. Actually, an areal view of the junior high school I attended would have looked just like that. Is this as visual that is still used to talk about school library media centers?
- In one short paragraph, what does Web 2.0 mean to the school library?
Your comments will be appreciated, and perhaps even included in the online handouts…
Dave,
I am combining the answers to the two questions in a single paragraph, since I do not think they are mutually exclusive!
With the use of Web 2.0 tools, the library media center can be the “virtual hub of the wheel” even when students cannot get to the facility during the day, when they are at home or at the local cafe, or even after they graduate.
By providing access to resources and allowing (and soliciting!) contributions by students and teachers, continuing and expanding the “conversation” outside of the four walls, and using Web 2.0 tools to provide access to the clearinghouse on the information landscape for the school, I think the library media center will continue be the hub of the information activity in the school!
Don’t forget that our anywhere anytime access also models for students, teachers, AND community ethical and appropriate use of information. We also provide the “authoritative” and “refereed” portals to information, wheras the Internet just gives everything good and bad. Our instructional practices, both modeled in the school/library and out n the world wide web play a vital role in helping kids understand the read/write web. We are almost like preachers in society, and people watch us (instructional practices, teaching strategies, mangemement of resources) for a role model to follow. Our purpose in a school is multifaceted, and we are not just a hub, but rather the whole mechanism of a wheel, including the breaks, the oil on the axle, the treads that give traction, and the air in the tire. Find a library where those things are failing, and you’ll likely find a whole school that is struggling, and not just the library.
Right, and thanks to Kathy and Cathy. But has Web 2.0 changed anything. Has it changed how you do your business with your patrons and your providers.
While Web 2.0 should be changing everything we are doing, the internet filters that we are required to have by law are keeping most of these 2.0 apps unavailable to us in our schools. Because of this, most of the librarians that I know are unaware of how these tools could be used to engage and reach students where they live – in the connected world. Until librarians and educators start learning about these Web 2.0 tools for themselves and letting their administrators know how hampered they are by these filtering protocols, the way we do business will never change and Web 2.0 might as well not even exist.
OK – rant over!
Kim Cofino’s library is called The Hub or something just like your post! I think she is in Thailand these days….
My notes from a talk Joyce Valenza gave that might help answer your questions.
Because of Web 2.0, I have been able to interact with students where they are– facebook, myspace, flickr, and youtube– to publicize, to celebrate, and to encourage conversation. Every time a teacher brings a class into the library, I have a blog post ready for them on the LCD with instructions, links, and an invitation for feedback.
I try to take advantage of all of their “tentacles” as you like to call them. It seems that not many other teachers are attempting this, which makes the library a popular place on campus.
A year ago I had the great pleasure of attending a presentation by Alan November to a room full of librarians and researchers at the Library of Congress. He clearly demonstrated to them that their job had changed and they had better change with it. The librarian’s job was no longer to gather together and dispense information but to help people make sense of the date they found.
I’m not a librarian but in my experience whether the library is the hub of the school depends very much on the person running it. I work with many librarians who are active in every part of their schools, bringing new ideas (including some from web 2.0) to anyone who’ll listen. They understand that they are teaching people to use information.
In other cases, we still have librarians who stay in their space, believing they are the focal point of the school, and wait for people to come to them. However, the crowds coming through the door are dwindling because teachers and especially students don’t view the library as the exclusive place to locate information. It’s coming from everywhere.
I’ve enjoyed reading the comments above and agree with the trust of them – Library 2.0 is still the hub – but it’s now the hub of information skills, not the only repository of information. We’ve always been the ones to collaborate with our teachers and students to teach people how to find information, how to filter information for that which is appropriate to our tasks and to use the information we’ve found to produce more information or solve problems. The media in which that information can be found has changed from print forms of media to electronic forms, and with web 2 is changing to even more dynamic and collaborative forms. But the essential tasks of finding, filtering and using the information remain what we’re good at. As the information we work with becomes more fluid and collaborative, we as librarians (media specialists / informologists – whatever you want to call us) should become more valuable yet – because that’s what we do – we collaborate on the use of information.
I’ll take a crack at the second question.
Web 2.0 means libraries better evolve outside their four brick walls, or they will go the way of the horse and buggy whip industry. I don’t remember the last time I used an encyclopedia, I don’t remember the last time I used a dictionary/thesaurus. I don’t remember the last time I needed to talk to someone at the reference desk to be pointed in the right way for information. I have had to use a library for old newspaper clippings, only to be able to create photocopies, and not pristine digital copies. The only thing that keeps me going to the library is what I cannot get online, and it is maddening what isn’t online now.
David,
In the unlikely event that you don’t read my blog or follow me in twitter, I’m pasting the tiny URL for my latest posting – inspired by your posting – here:
http://tinyurl.com/2r5aq3
diane