I had such plans for a good night’s sleep, after getting so few hours the night before. But this School Library Journal Summit just has me going. I woke up at 3:00 (4:00 AM my time, to be fair), with brainstorms going off in my head. The thunderbolts got so loud that they woke my wife, and I had to retreat to the Drake Room, the site of our summit work, where I could continue to think and also to feed off of the free WiFi here.
Chris Harris challenged us at the end of our meeting yesterday, to come up with a definition of Library 2.0. I would suggest that we expand this assignment. Instead of a definition, perhaps what might be even more useful, and easier to construct as a group, is a Library 2.0 manifesto, The L2 Manifesto.
It would include a basic definition, but would be followed by a list of statements, or theses, that describe the functions of library 2.0 and the librarian 2.0.
This is probably a figment of too little sleep and delusions of grandure that come with staying in The Drake Hotel. My dad would say I’m, “in high cotton!”.
| Chris Harris just came down and he liked the idea of a manifesto. However, what SLJ is looking forware are three or four opportunity statements. This is a good thing to get from a two day meeting. The manifesto will continue to be discussed. Stay tuned to a wiki near you. |
I like it when my ideas are validated by really smart people who have already thought of them. Michael Stephen, one of yesterday’s SLJ Summit panels, e-mailed me, pointing to an existing L20 Manifesto. Read it!
Image Citation:
Teee, Atelier. “Dragon Light Fixture.” Atelier Teee’s Photostream. 30 Jan 2006. 4 Nov 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/atelier_tee/93406753/>.
technorati tags:warlick, library, librarian, sljsummit06, l2manifesto
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An L2 manifesto! Hmmm.It is great to verbalize vision into statements because that gives something for people to “grab” onto.
To me, it is essential to recognize that information literacy is a critical skill for today’s students (and teachers). As teacher’s move to be “guides on the side” so must librarians. Librarians have always done a good job of helping students research. I think perhaps the fundamental problem is that when librarians were helping students with books and their databases, that they had somewhat selected the materials that students would sort through.
Now, if you go to my local library, you see 2-3 readers and 20 people on the computer. Librarians are not “selecting” the web sites that people are using. They don’t trust something without one source. (I mean really, what is this collaborative thing, who is held accountable and who do you cite — as my librarian says.)
As you allude to, this is a fundamental shift in the way libraries must not only provide information but also see themselves.
I got my librarian to dust off her information literacy information (literally) so I could see what of it we can use. She said that “no one” is interested in information literacy. Wrong!
I would venture so far to say that teaching students skepticism of online sources and validation by multiple sources is as important to their safety as it is to their intellect and that through our libraries we can help our nation and world greatly!
Good luck! If you have a wiki that is working on this, I’d love to contribute. If not, I’ll create one at the k12wiki.wikispaces.com project that just had such amazing results!
Vicki,
We would love to have you involved. We are working on getting this started at the SLJ Leadership Summit, but please feel free to drop by our wiki and add your thoughts as well!
http://sljsummit.pbwiki.com/School%20Library%202point0
I’d love to contribute, I found some great resources with you, but there is a wiki password that I do not know since I’m not there. I guess I’ll check back later!
(Perhaps a good place to start is some great mission statements that have been written by libraries, some of the language in these is great – http://midhudson.org/department/member_information/missions.htm)
The password is “slj”
chris
I definitely like the idea of an L2 Manifesto. I am in a district where the district has recently encountered some considerable budget shortfalls and two of the things that took severe hits were Librarians and Computer Lab Aides. Each school had a full time Librarian, this was cut to 50% and each school had a 30 hour per week computer lab aide, this position was cut completely.
I am having mixed feelings about the state of library services, which is why I feel this discussion is very timely for me. I recognize the need for Librarians and library services, yet I am very puzzled by the traditional approach of many librarians. When I met with our ‘subsitute librarian’ and our Global Communications teacher and discussed many of the Web 2.0 skills that the students are already learning how to use in the Global Comm class, all I got back from her was… “that’s great, but we will continue to use the subscription databases and encylopedias we have here…” My head sunk and I eventually left the meeting, knowing that there was no way I was going to change her perspective.
The quote I have on my blog is… “There is a big difference between teaching thirty years and teaching one year thirty times.”
Now, I am trying to look at this from a different perspective… Why are many Librarians in this mode? How can I facilitate the process of ‘L2 skills’ with the Librarians I interface with as part of my position as the District Technology Coordinator?
– Invite all Librarians to our teacher Web 2.0 trainings.
– Funnel all appropriate material regarding Web 2.0 and the L2 Manifesto to the Librarians
– Keep pushing the skills to students and teachers, so that when they do enter the library they have the skills necessary and will use them creating a critical mass for librarians to get in front of the change.
– Forward some of the discussions on this post to the Librarians in our district.