The Librain

Before I return to considerations of Web2.0, I am going to divert here towards a really interesting afternoon spent visiting the library at a local university. Many thanks to the lovely staff there who made me so welcome. Please note that any photos on this post are not of the library I visited today.

Sesame Library by Jim Bob Blann on Flickr

My first ever library post was as Graduate Trainee at Lancaster University Library back in 1979-1980! In those days we were in the early stages of automation – each book had a piece of punched card inside – about 10cms long. To issue a book, we had to take the student’s card – which also had holes in it – and put it through a reader. Then we had to push the piece of card through after it (I think I am remembering this correctly – it was a long time ago!). As the card often got scruffy, we had to learn how to read the holes and work out the numbers that they represented. One of my favourite jobs was the afternoon I spent each week with the techies. They were developing the next stage of computerising the library – barcodes!

Anyway, that diversion, within a diversion, just goes to show quite how old I am!

What I am leading up to is how far things have changed. I last walked into a university library probably in 1981, when I was finishing my Masters at Sheffield. Today, I walked into the most wonderful library space – I was almost jealous of the students for having such an amazing place in which to study!

So then I am thinking about my tiny library space in my new school – well, in comparison to a university library, all of my school libraries have been tiny! You would think that I had nothing in common with the library staff – how could I?

Well, that would be wrong! First of all, we are fellow-professionals and we speak a lot of the same language. We could relate to some of the same issues as librarians in an institution concerned with teaching and learning.

I went there to make a link and to talk about how we, as school librarians, can better prepare students for their time at university. I also had some idea what I would hear as I often read about the concerns of colleagues in the wider profession. These seemed to be the main issues.

On arrival at university, many students:

• Do not have an understanding of how to appraise resources. They do not have a concept of authority or trusted high quality resources. They think that a blog (written by anyone), a peer-reviewed journal article and a book are all equal.
• Have not gone beyond Google in terms of search engines before. Many still use Wikipedia uncritically.
• Have never used a subscription database – and wouldn’t know what one is anyway. The university invests a huge amount in high quality online resources, e-journals and e-books!
• Have never used journals.
• Have never read around their subject and baulk at essential reading lists.
• Are shaky when it comes to writing an academic essay.
• Have issues with plagiarism – not unexpected!
• Also have issues around understanding what a library is – as a public shared space. So they see nothing wrong with imposing themselves on other’s space in terms of noise, use of mobile phones and MP3 players, use of laptops, eating and drinking etc. They also have no idea of security – leaving their belongings around.
• Issues around use of ICT – using each other’s passwords or library cards.

There were lots of interesting features of the library in terms of design that confirmed some of what I am planning for our refurb – although I am more than embarrassed to compare the two! The sockets set into the floor, flexible seating, laptops, for example. It has also made me think that my idea for the classroom space (which we will incorporate into the library in 3-5 years), might be a good one: that we don’t take down the wall, but keep it as a bookable small room with IWB, laptops and flexible seating. That way it can be used for small group work, meetings etc., and the main library can have contrasting uses. For example, when we have a class in the main library, the smaller room could be used for quiet study; when we want quiet in the main library, the smaller room could be used for a group booking. The university library had a wonderful array of different kinds of space: ICT suites, group meeting rooms, areas with traditional study tables, areas with coffee bar style tables and chairs, zones with settees, and so on. This caters for the wide-ranging learning styles of today’s students.

I wish my library were a Tardis!

TARDIS by Dave Pearson on Flickr

Anyway, to finish, there are so many opportunities here for school librarians! Not only can we collect this kind of evidence about modern HE students and use it to convince our schools that we have a major role to play. We can also take heart from the fact that we share so many issues with our larger “cousins”. And we can look at their good practice and use it to inform how we develop our own collaborative teaching but also how we design our library spaces for the future!

Both images from the Flickr site

This is my response to the thoughts going through my head after reading Ken Eustace’s Web3.0 presentation and Judith Comfort’s post. I am copying it across from Sosius as I am really tired today and I need to do something else!

If I feel up to it, I will try to sort out my ideas a little better.

I must be getting tired! Or real life is grabbing hold of me again? I feel I have become so immersed in a Web2.0 world and am so excited and inspired by all that I am reading and experiencing that I cannot immediately look up and engage with a real person!

The podcasting presentation was excellent and I feel that I could try this out, when the opportunity presents itself. I have saved the presentation and also all of the links so that I can return to it later on.

I also dropped in on the “chat” session just to see that it works OK before our session at 8.00 pm tonight. If I have the energy, I may add to this post after that.

This afternoon, I tried the session on The Seamless School Library – well, that had me bowled over but totally drained at the same time. This is not a quick Word document or a .pdf, but a whole website to explore. It was too much for an afternoon – trying to fit this between the normal library stuff. I am also getting quite tired as I have been staying up too late reading stuff and then I cannot sleep as so much is whirring around my head!

Anyway, I will again come back to that section at a later date as I cannot cope with it today.

So, I spent some time working on the Library Online website. Having watched the social bookmarking presentation, I was reminded that I could use the “link rolls” script from Delicious to show visitors to the Subject pages the latest links for each subject that I have added to Delicious. I have only made a few of these pages as yet, because I have not reached the point where I am working closely with teachers. I just made these as examples – although the English one is starting to develop because the Sixth Form students are starting to ask me for help – wonderful!

Update: What great fun it was chatting to other school librarians on Meebo last night. Now I can see why teenagers get so addicted to MSN! Then I spent some time setting up Skype and got through to a friend in Australia. I still feel so starry-eyed by the power of technology! Maybe that is why I chose the picture below as my main avatar!

A more difficult day for me this one. I dipped in and out of the course all day and switched between various things that I needed to do in the library. I read Judy O’Connell’s blog regularly, so I already had an idea about her presentation. I continue to be in awe of the things that she does. But it is obvious that she is enabled to work on a different level to most of us in the UK as she has a huge library (we can see it developing on her blog), she has staff and as a teacher-librarian she is able to have her own classes.

Anyway, I will carry on following her as I pick up so many ideas from influential librarians like her!

David’s presentation, and the live session, was really amazing. I now know that I love something that has the human voice as well as a visual presentation! Although this kind of media center would not be possible or very appropriate in my present school, it was wonderful to see the things that are possible elsewhere.

Also, I must admit that I find I am still able to be awed by the power of technology! Whereas students have grown up with this, and so very rarely get that wow factor, I say “Wow” all of the time. From someone who used a dip-pen then later a sliderule at school to this…

…truly awesome!

Well, I am at home as the school is closed because of the snow. So, I thought that it was about time that I wrote a post about the developments I am making with Web2.0. After, that is why I set up the blog in the first place! Sorry that this is a long post – but today I have the time to write it!

I am having a lot of fun with the school library website. It has been started as a way of tracking the development of the Library as it is refurbished and also offering a service to the school when the current library stock is not of a standard to really meet the needs of the staff and students. It has been gratifying that so many school librarians have seen the site and have used it as an exemplar of what can be done. I also think that I can use the site to create a bit of a “wow factor” by utilising lots of Web2.0 gadgets and widgets to catch the eye.

These are being used in an educational way (honest) but also as a bit of fun. I chose a theme for the site that has a sidebar at each side of the main page. That way there is enough room to add in a range of widgets. I have moved them around a bit and tried a range of services.

So what are the main Web2.0 services that I am using? The left sidebar is mainly about the Library Online website itself:

• The top two widgets are just text that I use to explain the site and put on the latest news about the site.
• Then comes a widget with my Twitter feeds. I have to make sure that I use direct messages for personal conversations as the Twitter feeds need to look professional for the site. They are a great way of adding instant news updates to the site. I am Dixie_library on Twitter, by the way!
• The next six widgets are those generated for a WordPress blog that enable visitors to see the page structure, recent posts, recent comments, categories and tags. These help a visitor to navigate the site.
• Under this is more fun stuff. I have found that our students are fascinated to see where the visitors to our site are coming from – this is especially important as we are have International School Award. So I have put in widgets from Feedjit and Clustrmaps to show all of this.
• Below this are a range of widgets. The Educator’s Calendar from Widgetbox is used as I wanted to show events from around the world. I am not entirely satisfied that this is the best source as yet. Then a weather widget (also from Widgetbox) for our nearest town – Hinckley – shows how cold it is today! A badge for the TeacherLibrarian network and administrative tasks finishes this sidebar.

The right sidebar is more about the Library itself and also the public library etc.:

• First of all a text widget which will show current activities such as the recent National Year of Reading and currently the Times Books for Schools.
• Secondly, a widget that shows the photographs of our Library that I have uploaded to Flickr. I have done this so that I can show the development of the Library from this baseline year going forward into the future.
• Below this is another text widget with quick facts about the Library.
• Then I have put in a box with a link to a Meebo account. This may be a bit risky, but I have been reading about libraries who are using Instant Messaging with their customers and I am trying it out. I may find that another service will give me more control as I am a little concerned about misuse. What do you think?
• In the absence of an online catalogue, I am using LibraryThing to show the books that we have at present – the only issue I have is updating this as I think that I need to delete all records on it and re-import them regularly as we are buying a lot of new stock and withdrawing a huge amount at present. Anyway, this is shown in the sidebar.
• There are then some other reading-based widgets with favourite authors, a link to reading development websites tagged on Diigo, and a book review finder – which is a Google custom search engine.
• I have also highlighted our local public libraries in Leicestershire and Warwickshire (where most of our students and staff live) with links to their online catalogues and to the online subsciption services that they offer. Our local branch is also advertised here to encourage use by our school.
• Following this are three more widgets – firstly showing our Delicious tags: I have built these up over a long time and am in the process of adding new ones to support our staff and students. I use Delicious now for our curriculum and Diigo for professional links. Next is a link to SlideShare, where I upload any presentations that I think would be of interest. Last of all a link to Wordle, which I find fascinating – I keep trying to get teachers to use this – but no luck at the moment!

So, this has been a very long post, but I wanted to explain what I am trying to achieve at the front end of the site. Ideas for development are very welcome – please let me know if you have found better alternatives!

Well, I am having such a lot of fun! In fact I don’t think that I have enjoyed myself so much (in the professional sense, of course) since the early days of learning about computers. I remember the awed fascination that I had back in the early 80s for things like Prestel and the Domesday Project. It seemed amazing that we could “talk” to people around the world on our monitors and “walk” around rooms in 3D.

So… what has got me so excited? Well, a number of things.

1. Writing a collaborative document on Google Docs. Some of us are going to the CILIP Summit on School Libraries next week. So, I thought that it would be a good thing for the school librarians to share thoughts and ideas. We could have done this by email, but I thought that it would be much more interesting to do it by adding to a joint document. And so it has proved. I might be a bit sad, but it seems so clever and fascinating to edit the words whilst watching other people’s thought appear on the screen.
2. Playing around with our college portal. We are using RM’s Kaleidos and I have been trying for some time to think about how I could use it to help students access not only our resources in the LRC but link these with materials and information in the wider sense. I am only just beginning, but I was trying to find ways to attract students to the LRC’s pages. Some of the answer might be using widgets. So I have had a look at Google Gadgets – BTW this is not an extended advert for Google! What I have done is put widgets for football and cricket scores on the LRC page, works of art on the LRC’s Art page, RSS feeds about the latest Science news on the LRC’s Science page and a virtual aquarium on the LRC Student Helper page (this is the most popular). Each page that I am making to support subjects has appropriate widgets – it is such fun selecting them. I now want to explore what else I can add to get the college community to look at our pages. This is not silly stuff, apart from the aquarium and even that could be said to be soothing, I have a serious plan behind this.
3. Thinking about the balance between our website and the portal. I have said quite a bit about this already. But when it is so easy to edit a blog, wiki or the portal (less so), why am I continuing with our LRC website? Particularly when I cannot find enough time to develop it properly? I will continue to think about this over the Spring and Summer. I can quickly add links that I want to bookmark to Del.icio.us – but do I have a limit on this? Not sure.
4. Trying out a wiki with students. I have finally found the right teacher and the right (I hope) group to try this with. It is such a new idea in our college. But I hope that it will motivate our students better than doing individual essays. We are trying to get them working in teams with a mildly competitive ethos. We award each team points for how well they have worked during each lesson and I have made a league table on the wiki. Also, I now have a really good way of encouraging original writing rather than cut-and-paste and proper citation and referencing. As their work will be “published”, they have to do it properly. Well, let’s see how it goes.

Let the fun begin!

Well it is while since I last posted – various pressures have prevented me. Anyway, thanks to those librarians who have been sending me links to have a look at and think about.

And there is so much to think about!

So, today’s top thing is:

What is the role of the Librarian in today’s school library and maybe tomorrow’s?

I read this post “So just what should librarians be teaching?” from Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog. It is interesting to see how he discusses the different roles of the school library:

1. Reading Skills
2. Information Literacy
3. Technology Skills

He tries to work out the different balances that could be made between these areas. The diagrams clearly show his ideas.

In the UK, most school library staff do not have teaching qualifications, although most of us do teach. We may also think in different ways to the teacher-librarians in the US, Australia, etc. However, I have, over the years, tried to think more and more as an educator. I do try to balance out these differing roles – with varying degrees of success.

Some challenges are brought about by my own expertise/lack of expertise or my own skills and preferences – for example: I feel confident when helping students to choose books and have created a reading programme for our students, but would be less confident in actually teaching reading. I am happy to listen to students read and love “waving and raving”, but would not begin to know how to teach phonics. Is the teaching of reading the role of the school librarian? I am not sure.

I am looking more and more at how we can use the data held on the school systems such as SIMs in conjunction with our own Library Management Systems. How can we use our students’ reading levels to help them better? Do our schools even test students regularly so that we can measure our contribution to their reading development?

Similarly – I am happy to work with teachers on teaching research skills – particularly planning the search, thinking around the subject, developing keywords, using search engines and so on. I would not be so confident in teaching students how to write up their research, although I would like to get more involved and I would try! What is the role of the school librarian in the later stages of research? I have been sent a link on this and will return to this issue at another time. Also, I know many wonderful librarians who take Information Literacy Skills far beyond basic research – how many of us are confident that we can teach such things as “Critical Thinking” or group problem-solving and where do we go to learn how?

When I took up my present post nearly nine years ago, my ICT skills were definitely more advanced than most teachers and students. I still try to keep up with new developments and find this a very rewarding and exciting area of the job. Now, I think that more teachers are confident with their skills and many students are also. (Although many clearly are not or are over-confident!). Much of the teaching that I do in this area is on an informal ad-hoc level, rather than part of a formal teaching situation. I am learning about new technologies and am using them for my own personal and professional purposes. But, I would like more opportunities to use them with students. Where so we find the oportunities to try out new ideas?

A lot of questions here – do any of you have answers?

I have spent days building Pathfinders on LRC Online for Art students in our college to help them with exams. The pages cover various art movements and have links to appropriate artists. This is the link: LRC Online: Art Pathfinders

SO…

Some students used them as directed…

BUT…

Others just “Googled” as normal. They wanted to find images and by-passed all of the informative sites that I had tried to find.

SO…

What is the best way to support students and make the best use of my time? I gather the links first on Del.icio.us, then build pages around the themes that the teachers have asked for. Does anyone have any better suggestions for the best way to use limited time – after all, this was “just” Art. What about all of the other curricular areas that we are trying to support?