Sep 26 2007
Strongest Links and School Library 2.0
I have added two new pages to Strongest Links on the future of school libraries and the impact of Web 2.0. These contain the links that I have found when researching for the RTA Conference materials. This has been really fascinating, finding out so many new ideas and trying out Web 2.0 technologies.
My particular favourite things were:
Kathryn Greenhill’s Why should I learn about that when I’m busy with other stuff? and 20 reasons why learning emerging techologies is part of every librarian’s job from her Librarians Matter Blog. These are great posts – I can just imagine how many school librarians will respond to the idea of school library 2.0.
Many will be interested and try to find out more. They will try to incorporate new ideas in their work and will “sell” them to teachers – and their response will be fairly predictable in some cases. Other librarians will use the usual argument of not enough time. This is perhaps rather unfair of me as I don’t mean to criticise. In the UK, many school librarians work on their own and are part-time, term-time only. Many are very poorly paid. There are so many things that take up our time and are very important: reading development, information literacy teaching, the day-to-day running of the library.
But, this is the future. When I started out as a school librarian in 1982, we did not have computers in school libraries in the UK. I think that I got my first one in 1984 – a BBC Model B! I have always tried to keep up with new ideas and, in fact, keep ahead where I can.
So, the future is now! I will continue to use this blog to think about how I am changing and how I am trying to use new ideas in my work.
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Hi. I’ve just been on a mind-blowing conference @Inspiring the iGeneration:web 2.0, teenagers and libraries’. I needed to prep (and understand some of the jargon) so looked at the list of wikis and blogs , and found your site highly recommended. So, I can now dip my toes into wikis and blogs, and looking at how I can help our SLS members keep with developments and issues arising.
Thanks for your comments Penny. Have you found my Strongest Links site? That has been going for some years. This blog is a new venture to enable me to have a go and see where I might end up!