The Librain

Well, this post is following fast on the heels of the last one! I have been wandering around the school library blogosphere today reading extremely thought-provoking posts and comments about an issue that affects us all. So, the thought for today is:

How do we convince our school community that we have so much to offer? Have we allowed the development of technologies to marginalise libraries and librarians?

This quote is from Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog:

If we take an honest look at what we as librarians have done since technology has come into our buildings, as painful as it is to say, we have dropped the ball – big time. Why?

Why have school librarians not had a bigger impact on information and tech literacy integration?

This discussion is going on all around the blogs. Also have a look at Joyce Valenza’s Neverendingsearch Blog on the same issue.

There are several reasons mentioned why we may not have the impact that we would like. Our issues in the UK are even more serious, I would suggest, than those in the US - so I will add in a few of my own.

1. Sexism - most school library staff are women - most school managers are men.
2. Stereotypes - what is the image of librarians in our culture? Say no more…
3. Schitzophrenia and internal battling. What are we for - reading, information literacy, other stuff? How are we trained and qualified, or not?
4. Strategy - because we usually work alone we tend to get bogged down with the small stuff - working with individual teachers rather than lifting our eyes to the bigger picture. Do we think in a long-term strategic way, or are we running around worrying about how tidy our shelves are?
5. Respect - without school library standards in the UK, we struggle with the widely varying quality of school libraries and librarians. Teachers, in many cases, do not know what a school librarian can do for them, unless they have been fortunate enough to meet a good one. They come to us with often very low expectations of our service. We are not good at telling them what they should expect from us. We are often even worse at telling management what we do!
6. Lack of vision and direction - most of us work alone and largely motivate ourselves. Who is there to give us any direction? Schools Library Services? CILIP?? The SLA? We end up developing a vision for ourselves - often helped by our own informal networks rather than any input from professional organisations.
7. Stereotypes again - what is the view of libraries in our culture? Will the library as a book space lead us to a dead-end? As Joyce says under her headline of “Ubiquity”, we need to think and reach out beyond the physical space of the library - “Library must find a way to be a window on a students’ desktops.”
8. Image (Joyce says Brand - just as good). I now work with an assistant who has come to me from a retail environment. She thinks about promotion and branding all of the time - it is in her blood. She has got me thinking about this more as well - how to we create a unique service that is so central to the school that they cannot imagine being without it and us? How do we make sure that what we do is embedded in the school culture? Read what Joyce says about this as she puts it more fluently than I could.

We know that we have so much to offer in our schools. We know that we have a unique contribution to make that could really help our students raise their achievement.

So, it is our fault that we have not made enough impact?

I had a look at Joyce Valenza’s Top School Library Things to Think About in 2008 and I thought about what mine might be. Probably a lot more simple and ordinary. But this is an area that we all need to think about in the new year.

So my first thing is:

How do I enourage my school to have a balance between technology and reading?
It is the National Year of Reading 2008 in the UK and reading issues have been at the top of the political agenda for a few months. However, how often is the link made between our often poorly resourced and staffed school libraries, the crowded curriculum, the low status (in some schools) of the “librarian”, the excitement generated by ICT developments and reading problems amongst our youngsters? Giving a free book to every Year 7 student was great - but what follow-up is there? Creating a boys bookshelf with the Boys into Books scheme was great too - but what happens next?

Is it always up to us to push for reading for pleasure as opposed to “extractitis”?

What I would like is for teachers to be as enthusiastic and excited about reading as some are about ICT. Where is the research into and evaluation of the impact of ICT upon attainment to back up the huge spending and emphasis on ICT? Because there is research evidence to prove the importance of reading!

I am not knocking ICT - after all I am using it to write this! However, I am concerned that one day a generation of us will be looking at younger adults who cannot think beyond the computer screen. I watched a programme on TV over Christmas about the Cold War and was fascinated and more than a little scared to find out that Armageddon was only avoided because one Russian guy decided to think for himself rather than believe what the computer was telling him - the “nukes” heading towards the USSR were clouds!

I suppose what I am talking about is teaching critical thinking - others know more about this than I do. But, I was not taught like this - I read a lot and thought a lot.

Do our students think enough for themselves these days?

What do you think?

When researching Web 2.0 and School Library 2.0 a consistent voice has been Joyce Valenza’s. I have always admired her school website and have found other sites that she has made. But this particular page really rang bells for me:

How my life has changed/How my life will change

She started out a little before I did and has been several steps ahead of me in her thinking and daily practice. I found this page so interesting that I had to think about how far I have come.

She says: “We cannot expect to assume a leadership role in information technology and instruction, we cannot claim any credibility with students, faculty, or administrators if we do not recognize and thoughtfully exploit the information and communication paradigm shifts of the past two years.”

Yes, the pace of change is accelerating and we need to think what kind of library spaces we are going to manage in the future. Will the library be a physical space at all?

Anyway, read her page to see where she thinks we are going.