Summer school in library science

I know you are dying to know the courses I’m taking for the summer and you will be green with envy when you find I am not only take Reference but also Tech for Library Services.

Both are actually interesting – I was a little worried about the reference course, but we are going to create a pathfinder. My subject has already been submitted and approved. I’m going with the 5th grade science of weather and climate. Fifth grade science is a crucial course as it is the first year that science is tested in NC and limited time is shared with Math and Reading.

Now, if you are like me, you have/had no idea what a pathfinder is. It is an annotated bibliography of print and online references for a particular topic.

From the “You’ve got to be kidding” department . . .

Straight from Salinas California: 10-Year-Old Caught Surfing Porn At Library, Librarian Reprimanded For Reaction . Librarian sees kid looking at porn on a library computer. She says she tapped him, boy says it was a smack.

“I’m just disturbed that me touching the kid (was) blown out of proportion, and suddenly became much more important than vital issue of porn in library,” McKeighen said.

No, kidding! I’m disturbed by this too. I would have loved for one of my kids to say, “Oh, btw mom. The librarian smacked me today at the library when she caught me looking at porn! Wachagonna do about it?” mmmmmm. Not much thinking needed on that one. Well, I might need a moment to recover from my mortification that my child thought it was ok to look at porn in a public place. Then, he’d apologize to the librarian for looking at the porn. Now I’m thinking of the laundry list. He’d lose access to the computer. Can’t trust leaving him alone, so I’d have to go everywhere he really needed to go with him. I could go on, but I’ll stop there. Loss of privilege would be severe. I have visions of him longing for the smack of the librarian instead of the discipline heaped on him by the parental units.

Of course, as a librarian, I’m to mention to sweet little Johnny that he shouldn’t be on that site with a smile on my face (and obviously with my hands firmly at my side). Would it be stalking if I stood there long enough to make sure he really goes to a new URL? Or would I be in trouble if I just ignored what he was looking at? Surely his mom is there somewhere to intervene. The Library Bill of Rights allows for equal access after all.

HT

ebooks aren’t the invaders they might be – yet

In yesterday’s WSJ, there was an article called No Threat Yet. The public library has an amazing amount of titles to choose from, and colleges are also moving in that direction.

Yet, here I sit having just ordered my books for the next semester and I couldn’t get either one as an ebook. One of those courses was library technology.

The more I use ebooks, I think that I like them for informational type books, but I like reading fiction in a book with pages I can flip. Also, while I’d like an electronic version of the Bible, there is something about flipping the pages of it too. I’m frequently distracted by something else that catches my eye. I imagine that would be true of any book I spent a lot of time in.

Here is a library tour that Wendy sent me. Very nice. Has real books too.

Do School Libraries Need Books?

This is from the NYTimes. The school mentioned is giving away ALL of it’s books to make the library a digital center. Twenty thousand books are to be distributed.

This article comes on the heels of another I read about getting a Kindle into the hands of every grade-school student. I can’t find the article I read originally, but here is another on the same topic: The Government Should Spend $9 Billion Buying Every Kid A Kindle.

I probably wouldn’t have thought about this before, but now I’m in a Title 1 school and my first thoughts were about the kids – the kids that don’t have the advantages that my kids had. Are they well served at a school without a library? How will children who are 2 or 3 years behind in reading respond to words, story, information that is ALWAYS presented on screen? What will happen when the device is sent home and placed on the kitchen counter of a family that doesn’t have enough money for food? Transient rates are high in many Title 1 schools. What happens when a family moves and the device is not returned? I do not in any way want to sound judgmental but rather contemplative. I want to examine this from all angles, because once the government issues funding for this, we will be knee deep in it.

I’m trying to look at this from the eyes of a novice reader – that’s difficult because I’m not. But if every book to which a child is exposed (because the family can’t or doesn’t buy books) is on a screen, will that book have the same draw as one with paper pages? I don’t know, but I am curious about this phenomenon.

On this subject, one of ECU’s MLS professors summed her view up nicely (via email),

This discussion of the demise of the book came up when the radio appeared, and again, with the television, and again with the computer. Hasn’t happened – there are many more books published today for youth than there were with the first predicted demise of the book. It is not an either/or situation. This is about format, space, and timeliness of information. If the digital format is the best choice, then choose it, but don’t choose it because it is digital.  It is similar to people choosing hardware first and then realizing the software they really want to use doesn’t work with the hardware. Determine the information/leisure reading materials suitable for the community you serve and then determine the most appropriate format, which may well be the book.

Banned Dictionaries

Copies of the Merriam-Webster’s 10th Collegiate Edition dictionary (Merriam Webster, 2000) are back on classroom and library shelves at Oak Meadows Elementary School in Riverside County, CA, after being temporarily removed.

Officials at the Manifee Union School District, which serves close to 9,000 Pre-K to eighth grade students, pulled the books following objections from a parent that they contained the definitions of inappropriate sexual terms. But a panel of parents, teachers, and administrators decided last week to return copies of the dictionary to fourth and fifth grade students, along with a letter to parents asking for signed permission to allow their children to use them. Teachers will maintain a list of those students allowed to use the dictionary.

Read more at: Banned Dictionary Returned to Shelves

More on the Future of Libraries

This is an essay from LISNews – five basics (Commentary at the link):

1.) Perception of information is changing

2.) Literacy is changing

3.) Libraries are now part of greater information chorus

4.) Communication is our friend

5.) The underlying philosophies of the library have not changed

I think selling #3 is the really hard one. In all the reading for the last course, there are just some that think all information can be gathered from the internet without it being organized by anyone.

H.R. 3928 – Librarians in schools bill

Ok, there may be a better name than that, but that’s really what it is. Schools need librarians.

Here’s a summary from govtrack.us

10/26/2009–Introduced.
Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries Act or the SKILLs Act – Amends title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to authorize appropriations for FY2010-FY2015 for the Improving Literacy through School Libraries grant program. Requires local educational agencies (LEAs) that receive school improvement funds to ensure, to the extent feasible, that each of their schools receiving such funds employs at least one state certified school library media specialist. Directs states and LEAs that receive school improvement funds to ensure that by the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year there is at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in every school that receives such funds. Requires Improving Literacy through School Libraries funds to be: (1) proportionally distributed to serve students in elementary, middle, and high schools; (2) used for media resources appropriate for all grades; and (3) used for professional development in information literacy instruction that is appropriate for all grades. Expands the program of grants to states and subgrants to LEAs for the recruitment, retention, and professional development of teachers to require that highly qualified school library media specialists be included in the focus of such efforts.

I just got news today that some of the schools in one of the larger NC counties have decided to ax the librarians and put aids in their places. mmmmmm

Why does that make any sense when a librarian needs a masters degree in NC? Oh, I know it may make some money sense, but educationally speaking, it’s a doofus move!

The Future of Libraries

With the talk that libraries will be different in the future, I must consider that we are the future from some distant past. Libraries have already changed enormously and will continue to do so to meet ever changing needs and address growing technologies. How very different my library experiences must be compared to that of my grandmother. Major areas of future change will reflect differences in materials, the library as a place and to a smaller degree, the librarian.

Some people will always want to hold a real book in their hands – hardback with leaves verses the electronic version. One of the comments on an NPR interview was that the electronic versions are difficult for bathtub reading and this is so very true (Norris, 2004). Even with the advent of the electronic book reader, people are reticent to use it in the tub or with their feet in the pool. If the electronic reader drops in the water, you’ve not lost a book, but an entire library and the unit in which all those books are stored. I keep wondering how people will thumb through an electronic book to see if it has the content they really want. So I find it hard to believe that the future library will be devoid of books. Just as there are some people (even young ones) who prefer pencil and paper over computer, there will always be some who want to hold that traditional book in their hands.

Even though the trend for information dissemination is digital, it takes time to get older pieces digitized. Older works are currently available in book form, but what will happen to the books that already reside on the shelf when no new paper books are published. Libraries are great houses for them, but it is possible that libraries will become museums for books. Books as we know them may be housed in such a way that they cannot leave the premises as they are at specialized libraries like the North Carolina History Room at the Winston-Salem Downtown Branch. It may take great effort to hold a book as they become a rare commodity. But we know from the Illinois Library System, while the demand for digitized information is up, so it the demand for print information (ILAblog 2009). Rather surprising considering the touting of digitized products as the wave of the future, but it does give a glimpse into the resistance that people have for letting go of real books and embracing their electronic counterparts.

ALA stats show that library use has doubled over the previous decade (Norris, 2004). Libraries are places people want to be and will continue to want to be. People may be going for the books, the computer usage, or even the congregation with others. The congregation aspect may well change in the future. As people become more and more isolated due to the technologies, they will want to gather for a variety of reasons not including traditional library tasks but rather for conversation in general, the sharing of ideas, meeting with politicians and other figures, the desire for a quiet place to work and study, and access to materials not readily available on the internet. Spaces that will be some combination of rooms or open areas will provide for this growing list of needs. Areas will be available for conversation. We will provide more comfortable areas for individual and collaborative work. Food may well be provided such as they do at stores like book stores to help with that comfort and to provide for longer working periods.

In addition to the spaces for meeting, obsolete technologies need space for housing and usage. These spaces could house those items and their viewers/players in special areas designed for public use. These obsolete technologies are a growing concern as technology advances. Special libraries could even be built to house them. Consider some of the Epcot exhibits or earlier Star Trek episodes that were cutting edge, but so quickly became outdated. Technologies change so fast that there will be a need to house the rapidly outdated materials or risk losing that material in some technological graveyard.

Another needed space may be a digital/electronic center. I don’t think the computer banks we have at the present time are anywhere near what digital centers of the future could be. Currently computer centers in libraries are limited by time allotments and there are just too few of them. We will need rows and rows of corrals to hold the computers that have unlimited access. Viewing of electronic books will have to be set up as books are checked out and returned in their electronic forms. This is an area (electronic book check out) that I’d really like to have a better idea of how it will happen, but I haven’t been able to find enough on it yet to picture what it will look like. There are currently DVDs that will only work for two weeks after they have their first showing. I could see something along these lines working with electronic book check out.

Libraries will be more universal and less localized. Cards will grant access to wide ranging collaborations of public libraries systems and not be limited to towns, cities or counties. When this happens, libraries could become thematic like magnet schools specialized by a single or similar topics. Libraries will have to move online – not just a single page representation, but deep, rich, full, searchable sites that are accessed with library cards or some username-password combination. I foresee online story times and book discussions that run parallel to the face-to-face ones that will naturally continue in the meeting spaces provided.

As for the librarian, people will always need help with the where and the how and the why of learning and research. I have had several people tell me that the librarian will quickly be obsolete, but I think this reflects a severe lack of understanding in the role that the librarian plays. The librarian as information specialist will continue to fill that role whether online or in person. The role may very well move more and more online where the librarian serves much as a moderator for a forum, but his knowledge of materials, information and where to find them will continue to be a necessary part of research and learning. The librarian as teacher will shift to incorporate more and more technology, but there will always be people who don’t have the knowledge and need the teacher to guide them. This will be done in the context of finding information. And someone has to organize the ever increasing supply of information. That job will still be done by the librarian who will continue to be the expert at information organization.

ILAblog. (2009, November 13). Re: Summit on the Future of Illinois Library Cooperation
Retrieved from http://www.ila.org/blog/tag/future-of-libraries/

Norris, M. (2004, December 14). The Future of Libraries in the Digital Age, NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4227895

The future of libraries

I’m organizing an essay on the future of libraries and I’d love to get your input here. What do you think are the waves of the future for libraries?

These are just my thoughts based on readings and experience in no particular order (unless perhaps I start to see a trend – then I may start organizing).

Some people will always want to hold a real book in their hands – verses the electronic version. One of the comments I heard on an NPR interview was that the electronic versions are difficult for bathtub reading.

Even though the trend for information dissemination is digital, it takes time to get older pieces digitized. They are currently available in book form. Libraries are great houses for those books, but will they become museums for books? Will books as we know them be housed in such a way that they cannot leave the premises?

Also as more and more information is digitized, it seems that new education must occur to learn how to search and develop an understanding of the  validity of the information found. From the Illinois Library System, while the demand for digitized information is up, so it the demand for print information. Rather surprising considering the touting of digitized products as the wave of the future.

ALA stats show that library use has doubled in the last decade. That makes me consider that libraries are places people want to be. Are people going for the books, the computer usage, the congregation with others? And in thinking about that congregation, what might it be for? Politics? book discussions? Civic opportunities? Classes?

Technologies are ever changing. What happens to information (or entertainment) on obsolete mechanisms? Could the library house those items and their viewers/players in special areas for public use?

I’ve already seen a change in the role of the librarian. He is an information specialist. How and where can the best information be found and received by the people who need it? As things are digitized more and more, will the librarian’s job change even more to be like that of an online moderator? If that happens, does it mean that the librarian will have to be more specialized or more generalized.

Could the library still have books and perhaps a digital center. I don’t think the computer banks we have at the present time count toward digital centers – at least in the libraries I’ve been in. They are limited by time allotments and there are just too few of them. How could the library loan out books for Kindle and Nook? I really want an answer for this because it seems like we’ll have to come up with a solution! Here’s one possibility.

Libraries will work together for InterLibrary Loaning. Along the same lines, cards should make state-wide public libraries accessible and not be limited to towns, cities or counties. If this happens, then libraries could become thematic like schools specialized by a single or similar topics.

Libraries will have an online component – not just a single page representation, but a deep, rich, full, searchable site that are accessed with library cards. Perhaps there will be online story times and book discussions that run parallel to the face-to-face ones that need to continue.

Libraries will provide the place needed for work and research. Areas will be available for conversation. They will be more comfortable. Food may well be provide as they do at Barnes & Nobel.  As for the librarian, I think people will always need help in the where and the how and the why. The librarian as information specialist will continue to fill that role whether online or in person.