The actual program described in the "C's of our Sea Change" article by Blowers and Reed sounded like great fun. While I was a bit iffy about the facilitators' decision to allow anonymous blogging (it seemed like an invitation to trolling, as far as I was concerned), their idea to reward participants with MP3 players was genius. Not only did it provide a tangible motivation for learners to complete the course, but the choice of prize actually tied in perfectly with the goals of the course. Actually, this seemed to be a constant in all three of the articles--success depends on providing the right kind of carrot. As Fontichiaro noted, teachers in her explorations course got 10 professional development hours, and participants in the Fusion program received a stipend of up to $500. I also now realize where our professor probably got the idea to make us blog about our readings every week.
The actual writing style of the Blowers and Reed article put my teeth on edge, however. The cutesy alliterations and puns, as well as little asides like "see if you can say that three times fast" made me take the authors much less seriously. Apparently they developed a good program as our own professor later modeled on of her own on it, but I think the experiment would have perhaps gotten wider recognition if it had been written in a more professional manner. My reservations aside, however, the authors did present some fairly convincing anecdotal evidence as to the effectiveness of their program. I had no idea librarians sometimes put "out of order" signs on computers because they didn't know the password! If Blowers and Reed were only able to stop this practice, I would still consider the program a success. In reality they went much further, teaching "late bloomers" about Flikr, YouTube, blogging, RSS feeds, downloadable content and more. While their hierarchy of four core competencies seemed a bit lenient (come on, everybody should know how to use a spreadsheet, not just those in public service), the great detail they went into when determining them speaks to a sophisticated understanding of the needs of librarians.
I also really liked their emphasis on "play". This is how I and everyone I know my age learns about new technologies, but people my parents' age seem to be stuck repeating a set of proscribed steps. For example, an older woman I used to work with always kept a notebook on her with numbered lists for a certain program. Every time she had do do something on the computer, like notify a patron that their hold had come in, she would open up her notebook, find the appropriate topic, and then just follow the steps-- 1, 2, 3, 4. If anything unexpected happened, she would either start over from the beginning or just give up. Encouraging exploration and creativity in problem-solving really takes a lot of the scariness out of computers, I think. Once you learn the new lexicon of procedures and phrases inherent to computing, you can apply them in thousands of different ways. Even learning that there is often more than one right way to do something, or that shortcuts exist for a variety of commonplace actions, teaches beginners that the key to successful computing is not memorization, but actual use. Like learning to play an instrument, the more you practice scales and chords, the better you become at improvisation.
On the surface, the Semadeni reading held the least relevance to me as a prospective public or academic librarian. Being explicitly geared towards professional development in the field of primary and secondary education, it focused on some aspects of the teaching career that has no analogue in that of the library. Like teachers, however, librarians have to constantly update their skills and look at new ways of reaching patrons. Learning new teaching strategies for conducting book clubs, webinars, and workshops is just as important for LIS specializations as SLMs. Her comment that with this program "Teachers expenence professional development as an opportunity to learn wiih colleagues rather than something to resent or fear" brought me back to where Blowers' and Reed's "late bloomers" were before their training. It seemed as though they were both afraid of Web 2.0 tools and resentful of their intrusion into the library sphere. By using collaboration, however, all three of these programs made learning new skills less frightening and more exciting. Semadeni's discussions of the laid-back group study sessions divided the time between conversation, discussion, advising and reporting, which seemed to suit the participants just fine.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Webinars and U(seless warranties)
This post is... late. Very late. My computer conked out on me again last weekend (faulty adapter this time) and it took me until Wednesday to get the part shipped in. The process was expensive, frustrating and worrisome, not to mention redolent of deja vu. If you'll recall, something similar happened to me earlier in the semester, immediately after my computer's warranty expired. As far as I'm concerned, this was no coincidence. Of course, all this hand-wringing doesn't explain why I didn't get around to writing until today, but as I don't really have a good answer, we'll just go with shock and trauma--definitely not that I was writing the final paper for 500 instead.
Naturally, a lot has happened since I last wrote. Not only did I conduct my first-ever webinar, but I got to listen to the majority of my class's first forays into this brave new world as well. I've got to say, you all did much better than I. My group's troubles began with a previously-undiscovered incompatibility between Elluminate and Keynote and, despite some fancy footwork, we had a hard time working out all the bugs and getting the presentation underway. I know its rather late in the game for such advise, but if you happen to listen to my group's archived presentation you can probably just skip about the first five minutes as its just us whispering to each other about how to get the webcam working. Add in a healthy dose of public-speaking jitters and the fact that I thought my teammate was mouthing "wrap it up" when he was actually asking for a bit of back-and-forth, and my performance could best be characterized as amateur. So, sorry, teammates and classmates. We're just going to have to chalk this one up to the learning curve. Oh, and speaking of learning: my biggest takeaway was definitely to come prepared for questions. If you don't know, you can always prevaricate or suggest other resources, or, as a last resort, just say so.
Due to my troubles, I wasn't able to participate in any of the webinars live, so I went to the archives on the Wikispace when I finally got my computer back in order to listen to what everybody else had to say. These are the order I watched them in:
The "Three Blind Mice" tutorial also dealt with an underserved sector of the population and had a lot of interesting observations about the library experience of a blind or low vision person. Many of this group's suggestions were eminently practical and insightful. These included such common-sense dictates as "clean up the aisles" and "don't pet the guide-dog" as well as "introduce yourself" so that the patron can later ask for and identify you by name. Following this, I listened to the "Pow-Wow at your Library" webinar, which actually addressed some of the same issues, like sensitivity and the importance of storytime. Other issues were unique to this population. Since Native Americans are not as visible a minority group as others in this country, many libraries still have materials that may be offensive or inaccurate. Stories like "The Bernstein Bears Give Thanks" or "The Indian in the Cupboard", which we all grew up reading, actually contain messages that, upon reflection, do not portray Native Americans all that accurately. I also heard some echoes of my own group's presentation in the Pow-Wow group's exhortations to identify the subgroup living in the library's community. For us, that meant figuring out which country our immigrants came from, while for them it had more to do with specific tribes and reservations.
Lastly, I felt like I should shake things up by including a copyright webinar, so I watched the open access presentation by Amanda, Kayla and Joanna. They had some really interesting things to say about "copyleft" and creative commons, as well as the development of open-access journals. I was especially excited to hear about Senator Lieberman's bill to make publicly-funded research publicly available until they said that he'd been introducing it over and over for years. More heartening was the speed at which open access journals have so far developed readership as opposed to print journals. Even with the "permission crisis" of publishers restricting distribution rights from libraries, I think this trend can go a long way towards making Sen. Lieberman's dream come true.
Naturally, a lot has happened since I last wrote. Not only did I conduct my first-ever webinar, but I got to listen to the majority of my class's first forays into this brave new world as well. I've got to say, you all did much better than I. My group's troubles began with a previously-undiscovered incompatibility between Elluminate and Keynote and, despite some fancy footwork, we had a hard time working out all the bugs and getting the presentation underway. I know its rather late in the game for such advise, but if you happen to listen to my group's archived presentation you can probably just skip about the first five minutes as its just us whispering to each other about how to get the webcam working. Add in a healthy dose of public-speaking jitters and the fact that I thought my teammate was mouthing "wrap it up" when he was actually asking for a bit of back-and-forth, and my performance could best be characterized as amateur. So, sorry, teammates and classmates. We're just going to have to chalk this one up to the learning curve. Oh, and speaking of learning: my biggest takeaway was definitely to come prepared for questions. If you don't know, you can always prevaricate or suggest other resources, or, as a last resort, just say so.
Due to my troubles, I wasn't able to participate in any of the webinars live, so I went to the archives on the Wikispace when I finally got my computer back in order to listen to what everybody else had to say. These are the order I watched them in:
- Is Access a Civil Right?
- Three Blind Mice
- Pow-wow at Your Library: Serving Native American Youth
- Open Access: Less Money, Less Problems
The "Three Blind Mice" tutorial also dealt with an underserved sector of the population and had a lot of interesting observations about the library experience of a blind or low vision person. Many of this group's suggestions were eminently practical and insightful. These included such common-sense dictates as "clean up the aisles" and "don't pet the guide-dog" as well as "introduce yourself" so that the patron can later ask for and identify you by name. Following this, I listened to the "Pow-Wow at your Library" webinar, which actually addressed some of the same issues, like sensitivity and the importance of storytime. Other issues were unique to this population. Since Native Americans are not as visible a minority group as others in this country, many libraries still have materials that may be offensive or inaccurate. Stories like "The Bernstein Bears Give Thanks" or "The Indian in the Cupboard", which we all grew up reading, actually contain messages that, upon reflection, do not portray Native Americans all that accurately. I also heard some echoes of my own group's presentation in the Pow-Wow group's exhortations to identify the subgroup living in the library's community. For us, that meant figuring out which country our immigrants came from, while for them it had more to do with specific tribes and reservations.
Lastly, I felt like I should shake things up by including a copyright webinar, so I watched the open access presentation by Amanda, Kayla and Joanna. They had some really interesting things to say about "copyleft" and creative commons, as well as the development of open-access journals. I was especially excited to hear about Senator Lieberman's bill to make publicly-funded research publicly available until they said that he'd been introducing it over and over for years. More heartening was the speed at which open access journals have so far developed readership as opposed to print journals. Even with the "permission crisis" of publishers restricting distribution rights from libraries, I think this trend can go a long way towards making Sen. Lieberman's dream come true.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
I Keep Running Out of Characters
Like everybody else, I signed up for Twitter last week in order to have something to write about in this blog post. To be honest, I had a twitter account even before this, but I had used it a total of two times-- once to post something to the display in the SI lounge and once because I thought, like Facebook, you needed an account in order to access other people's comments/tweets. This is the first time I've actually explored any of the features. The first thing I noticed: its really hard to say something substantive in 140 characters! I kept running out and then having to go back over my tweets and either abbreviate words or take out whole phrases. I also didn't know that hashtags and other users' names counted towards this limit so I'd go right up against the wall and then remember that I had to include #si643. I also wasn't entirely certain what the content of my tweets should be. I mean, the famous people that I started following apparently have no problem telling the world about their illnesses or cursing their spellchecker, but surely if this is an assignment, I should be discussing weighty matters of professional practice? Not so! After ten minutes on Twitter, I now know that where my classmates will be spending their Sundays, what their opinions are on April Fools Day jokes, and how much they love flossing (actually, I don't think the last one had an SI hashtag, so it probably doesn't count).
Visiting the links that everybody's been putting up has been fun, although this format kind of feels like an expanded version of si.all. The jury's still out on whether I would use twitter regularly in my library career but I did just recommend the other day that my pastor (who's a total Facebook addict) use it to get the word out on her service opportunities and study sessions. Generally, this format--tweets generated by an organization instead of an individual-- seemed more useful to me. As celebrities tweets are constantly getting them into trouble and judging by the amount of personal information I've seen posted in my network, it seems that people have a hard time fully understanding just how public their random thoughts will become when they hit the "tweet" button. Twitter accounts controlled by so-and-so's marketing department, on the other hand, really get that they represent the public face of the company/institution/organization they're tweeting about, which tends to make their posts both more boring and less trivial.
As for class last week, I quite enjoyed the heated discussion on embedded librarianship. I agree that this really is an issue more of use to academic libraries than public ones, but it was still interesting to hear about different people's opinions. I'm still not convinced that sending a librarian with a physician to do rounds is going to make much of an impact unless said librarian also has a medical degree, but I can also see where it would be of great benefit to specialized collections and insular academic communities such as a music library or business school. Also, I agree with Kristen that the book club assignment was more geared in our (prospective public librarians') direction, so everything balances out.
Even though Courant already presented in SI 500 and we had to read one of his articles for class, I really enjoyed him taking the time just to answer questions. People came up with some really interesting ideas, and he had really interesting answers. Its obvious that he's thought about all this stuff in depth and has formed deep opinions about how to keep libraries viable. Also-- the Espresso Book Machine is AWESOME. 'nuff said.
Visiting the links that everybody's been putting up has been fun, although this format kind of feels like an expanded version of si.all. The jury's still out on whether I would use twitter regularly in my library career but I did just recommend the other day that my pastor (who's a total Facebook addict) use it to get the word out on her service opportunities and study sessions. Generally, this format--tweets generated by an organization instead of an individual-- seemed more useful to me. As celebrities tweets are constantly getting them into trouble and judging by the amount of personal information I've seen posted in my network, it seems that people have a hard time fully understanding just how public their random thoughts will become when they hit the "tweet" button. Twitter accounts controlled by so-and-so's marketing department, on the other hand, really get that they represent the public face of the company/institution/organization they're tweeting about, which tends to make their posts both more boring and less trivial.
As for class last week, I quite enjoyed the heated discussion on embedded librarianship. I agree that this really is an issue more of use to academic libraries than public ones, but it was still interesting to hear about different people's opinions. I'm still not convinced that sending a librarian with a physician to do rounds is going to make much of an impact unless said librarian also has a medical degree, but I can also see where it would be of great benefit to specialized collections and insular academic communities such as a music library or business school. Also, I agree with Kristen that the book club assignment was more geared in our (prospective public librarians') direction, so everything balances out.
Even though Courant already presented in SI 500 and we had to read one of his articles for class, I really enjoyed him taking the time just to answer questions. People came up with some really interesting ideas, and he had really interesting answers. Its obvious that he's thought about all this stuff in depth and has formed deep opinions about how to keep libraries viable. Also-- the Espresso Book Machine is AWESOME. 'nuff said.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Webinars: For When You Need to Have Class in a Snowstorm
In honor of our other readings this week, I chose a webinar from EdWeek called Virtual Challenge: Creating Quality E-Courses. Since it was an archived webinar, I basically got to watch a PowerPoint slideshow with a voice-over, but it was still interesting. Honestly, I've never been in a college class that's taken advantage of these resources for their on-line classes, and my grades have suffered for it. The entire time I was in undergrad, I took a couple of on-line classes over the summer while working. I can tell you right now that every one of these courses averaged an entire letter-grade lower than my face-to-face classes and I still blame them for keeping me from graduating with honors (I was 0.02 points away!).
Anyway, this was a really well put-together webinar moderated by Michelle Davis, somebody I've never heard of but Kristen probably rode in an elevator with once. There were two other presenters as well--Greg Marks and Debbi Crabtree, and they presented a really in-depth study that to be honest I kind of tuned out but which they seemed really excited about. While the types of on-line courses they were talking about were not the sort I had any experience with, being primarily aimed at younger learners, some of the quality-control measures they proposed really made sense to me. One thing they emphasized over and over was motivational framing--making the student want to complete the course without having a teacher actually there to get in their face about it. This was especially important because a lot of the kids they were targeting were ones who had failed a class during the regular school year and had to retake it during the summer. In Crabtree's study, 83% who enrolled successfully completed their courses. Crabtree and Davis also emphasized the importance of making students feel unique, not just like one of the crowd. Teachers could do this by sending out emails which addressed the student by name, or giving them in-depth feedback on assignments (also something I never received).
As for the Matos reading: a) I had never heard of embedded librarianship before this and b) I now really want to know more about it. Honestly, I'm not sure its for me, though, as schmoozing faculty members and getting my name out there really isn't my strong suit. I know I'll have to interact with real people as a librarian, but I'd hope not to this extent, maybe? (Yes, this is totally unrealistic. Yes, I was one of those kids who thought being a librarian meant reading books all day. Yes, I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that this is not the case. Give me time.)
Then there's also the Montgomery and How People Learn readings, but I'm kind of running out time and I'd really like to finish up by talking about our workshops last week. So: maybe our workshop didn't kick all the butt I thought it would, but it was still pretty darn cool. I was glad that we went with the all-pictures slide show, since making our fellow students do a lot of reading in the six minutes (six minutes!) we'd allotted for the lecture section seemed a bit much on top of our very detailed scenario questions. I did most of the talking for that first six minutes, and luckily did not have one of my deer-in-the-headlights moments. There were a few more "ums" and "ahs" than I was comfortable with, but generally I think I conveyed the information that I set out to. The scenarios discussions were likewise very lively and engaging. I'm glad people really seemed to get into them. We tried to make them both as open-ended as possible, but one participant reported that his/hers seemed closed. Maybe we could do some tweaking, but I'm pretty satisfied with how that part went. The lecture section, however, proved problematic in feedback. I've come to the conclusion that given the short amount of time we had, we might have been better off to cut it all-together as I was only able to do a very surface gloss on the subject. Honestly, I don't think I gave them much in the way of new information. In order to do that, we would have needed to cut the scenarios all-together, and I think they were the stronger of the two sections. They certainly garnered some interesting results.
Anyway, this was a really well put-together webinar moderated by Michelle Davis, somebody I've never heard of but Kristen probably rode in an elevator with once. There were two other presenters as well--Greg Marks and Debbi Crabtree, and they presented a really in-depth study that to be honest I kind of tuned out but which they seemed really excited about. While the types of on-line courses they were talking about were not the sort I had any experience with, being primarily aimed at younger learners, some of the quality-control measures they proposed really made sense to me. One thing they emphasized over and over was motivational framing--making the student want to complete the course without having a teacher actually there to get in their face about it. This was especially important because a lot of the kids they were targeting were ones who had failed a class during the regular school year and had to retake it during the summer. In Crabtree's study, 83% who enrolled successfully completed their courses. Crabtree and Davis also emphasized the importance of making students feel unique, not just like one of the crowd. Teachers could do this by sending out emails which addressed the student by name, or giving them in-depth feedback on assignments (also something I never received).
As for the Matos reading: a) I had never heard of embedded librarianship before this and b) I now really want to know more about it. Honestly, I'm not sure its for me, though, as schmoozing faculty members and getting my name out there really isn't my strong suit. I know I'll have to interact with real people as a librarian, but I'd hope not to this extent, maybe? (Yes, this is totally unrealistic. Yes, I was one of those kids who thought being a librarian meant reading books all day. Yes, I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that this is not the case. Give me time.)
Then there's also the Montgomery and How People Learn readings, but I'm kind of running out time and I'd really like to finish up by talking about our workshops last week. So: maybe our workshop didn't kick all the butt I thought it would, but it was still pretty darn cool. I was glad that we went with the all-pictures slide show, since making our fellow students do a lot of reading in the six minutes (six minutes!) we'd allotted for the lecture section seemed a bit much on top of our very detailed scenario questions. I did most of the talking for that first six minutes, and luckily did not have one of my deer-in-the-headlights moments. There were a few more "ums" and "ahs" than I was comfortable with, but generally I think I conveyed the information that I set out to. The scenarios discussions were likewise very lively and engaging. I'm glad people really seemed to get into them. We tried to make them both as open-ended as possible, but one participant reported that his/hers seemed closed. Maybe we could do some tweaking, but I'm pretty satisfied with how that part went. The lecture section, however, proved problematic in feedback. I've come to the conclusion that given the short amount of time we had, we might have been better off to cut it all-together as I was only able to do a very surface gloss on the subject. Honestly, I don't think I gave them much in the way of new information. In order to do that, we would have needed to cut the scenarios all-together, and I think they were the stronger of the two sections. They certainly garnered some interesting results.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
I Have Five Minutes to Talk at You, So Listen Up (pleez)
My group is finishing up our preparations for the workshop as I speak and the thing that struck me the most about getting ready is just how little time we actually have. Joanna, Brett and I figured that what with activities, introductions, evaluations, etc. we'd only have about five minutes of pure info-dump time at our disposal. Believe me, we intend to make that time count. I even made a useless little PowerPoint to give our participants something fun to stare at as I motormouth.
I have to admit, reading the Mosley article a week late was actually kind of beneficial for me (plus, her first name is actually Pixey, which just about made my week). It helped me put things into perspective as we threw together all the last-minute touches on our workshop. Don't get the idea from all this talk of night-before planning that we procrastinated on this assignment. No, we met last Wednesday and last Saturday. I would just like to reiterate: I got up on a Saturday for 643. Our workshop is going to kick butt.
As for last week's class, I'm still in the "ooh, shiny new technology" phase as far as elluminate is concerned. It was really useful to get a feel for what our webinars will look like on the other side when the time comes. I also took a peek at a couple other classmates' blogs before writing this, and I think I agree with most of what they said about the experience; namely, that the conversation got a little chaotic and we might have gotten more out of it if we could have used all of elluminate's features. It was pretty weird for her to be able to see but not hear us and for us to be able to hear but not see her. On the other hand, we got to talk to a real-life library blogger who was knowledgeable and articulate and totally didn't treat us like children. You know you've grown up when the grown ups take you seriously.
I have to admit, reading the Mosley article a week late was actually kind of beneficial for me (plus, her first name is actually Pixey, which just about made my week). It helped me put things into perspective as we threw together all the last-minute touches on our workshop. Don't get the idea from all this talk of night-before planning that we procrastinated on this assignment. No, we met last Wednesday and last Saturday. I would just like to reiterate: I got up on a Saturday for 643. Our workshop is going to kick butt.
As for last week's class, I'm still in the "ooh, shiny new technology" phase as far as elluminate is concerned. It was really useful to get a feel for what our webinars will look like on the other side when the time comes. I also took a peek at a couple other classmates' blogs before writing this, and I think I agree with most of what they said about the experience; namely, that the conversation got a little chaotic and we might have gotten more out of it if we could have used all of elluminate's features. It was pretty weird for her to be able to see but not hear us and for us to be able to hear but not see her. On the other hand, we got to talk to a real-life library blogger who was knowledgeable and articulate and totally didn't treat us like children. You know you've grown up when the grown ups take you seriously.
Anecdata
...is my new favorite made-up word, a la Jason Griffey! Obviously, the HarperCollins/Overdrive debate has generated a lot of blow-back by librarians who feel that the doctrine of first sale is under attack (I mean, even Neil Gaiman is involved!), as well as calming voices and outright HC supporters. My favorite posts, however, came from Griffey and the awesomely-named BeerBrarian. The first posits that the 27-patron cut-off will have very little effect on most libraries bottom lines, as few books ever really circulate that often. The second contends that in the digital age, why do we need publishers, anyway? I must admit, I was a bit skeptical of this theory, until I heard an explanation from one of the panelists at the Day in the Life of a Forward-Thinking Librarian presentation last Friday. According to him, authors--like musicians before them--are soon going to start realizing that they can make more money selling $0.99 e-books to more people than by using the inflated pricing systems that publishers are currently pushing on them to make e-book analogous to print books. Judging by the success of established artists like Coldplay, who recently released their latest album on the web, I can see this trend accelerating in the near future. With the way the internet is currently blurring the lines between traditionally-vetted and self-published authors/ artists/ musicians, it makes sense that ye olde publishing industry is flailing around trying to find solid ground--even if that means violating the sacred statute of first sale.
Jason Griffey's post, on the other hand, I found to be much less useful, especially in light of the Pioneer Library System's YouTube demonstration. Griffey, as he freely admits, makes use more of "anecdata" than statistics. Additionally, his library seems to have unusually low circulation rates, in addition to being an academic library, which receives fewer checkouts of each title anyway. The PLS video, on the other hand, provides concrete and compelling--if cherry-picked-- data as to the longevity of popular HC print books versus their ebook counterparts. One hardcover, which admittedly had some spinal damage, had circulated 120 times. Of the five books profiled, the library would have had to buy 12 additional copies if they had been e-books. That's pretty convincing evidence of the arbitrary and unscientific nature of the 26-checkout rule.
As to the other readings, Mosley and the ALA code of Ethics, I'm not quite sure what to make of them. The Mosley reading is old enough that some of the specifics of her workshop has lost relevancy (students don't use the library in the same way today as they did in 1998). On the other hand, the need to liaise with professors handing out "library assignments" remains high, and the overall report provides a great example of a successful workshop, which was probably the reason we had to read it anyway. The article also made me think back to my favorite library assignment in undergrad, where my film instructor told us all to go out and watch a movie from the 1930s and then find the press-packet associated with that film (which our library had on microfilm), scan the materials into a PDF document, then write a paper on the marketing of that film and submit along with the PDF.
The Code of Ethics wasn't especially earth-shattering, either. It said basically what I expected it to, taking a hard line on censorship and patron privacy, as well as all other best-practice stuff that can be found in just about any institution's mission statement. I did, however, really appreciate statement VII: "We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources." If only pharmacists had to adhere to this doctrine, instead of being able to deny birth control and Plan B to customers because of their religious beliefs. Libraries, like the medical system, have a duty to the public that goes beyond our own petty biases and preconceptions.
As for last week's class (actually two weeks ago because this post is mega-late), I quite enjoyed my group's book discussion. Between the nine of us, we took up the entire three-hour bloc, which speaks, I think, to our appreciation of the material. I especially enjoyed preparing the passage from Ovid, and that group's insightful questions. In evaluating our own performance, my group identified several areas we could improve upon for the upcoming workshop.
Jason Griffey's post, on the other hand, I found to be much less useful, especially in light of the Pioneer Library System's YouTube demonstration. Griffey, as he freely admits, makes use more of "anecdata" than statistics. Additionally, his library seems to have unusually low circulation rates, in addition to being an academic library, which receives fewer checkouts of each title anyway. The PLS video, on the other hand, provides concrete and compelling--if cherry-picked-- data as to the longevity of popular HC print books versus their ebook counterparts. One hardcover, which admittedly had some spinal damage, had circulated 120 times. Of the five books profiled, the library would have had to buy 12 additional copies if they had been e-books. That's pretty convincing evidence of the arbitrary and unscientific nature of the 26-checkout rule.
As to the other readings, Mosley and the ALA code of Ethics, I'm not quite sure what to make of them. The Mosley reading is old enough that some of the specifics of her workshop has lost relevancy (students don't use the library in the same way today as they did in 1998). On the other hand, the need to liaise with professors handing out "library assignments" remains high, and the overall report provides a great example of a successful workshop, which was probably the reason we had to read it anyway. The article also made me think back to my favorite library assignment in undergrad, where my film instructor told us all to go out and watch a movie from the 1930s and then find the press-packet associated with that film (which our library had on microfilm), scan the materials into a PDF document, then write a paper on the marketing of that film and submit along with the PDF.
The Code of Ethics wasn't especially earth-shattering, either. It said basically what I expected it to, taking a hard line on censorship and patron privacy, as well as all other best-practice stuff that can be found in just about any institution's mission statement. I did, however, really appreciate statement VII: "We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources." If only pharmacists had to adhere to this doctrine, instead of being able to deny birth control and Plan B to customers because of their religious beliefs. Libraries, like the medical system, have a duty to the public that goes beyond our own petty biases and preconceptions.
As for last week's class (actually two weeks ago because this post is mega-late), I quite enjoyed my group's book discussion. Between the nine of us, we took up the entire three-hour bloc, which speaks, I think, to our appreciation of the material. I especially enjoyed preparing the passage from Ovid, and that group's insightful questions. In evaluating our own performance, my group identified several areas we could improve upon for the upcoming workshop.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Hearts, continued
Sorry, I apparently forgot to comment on the Card Catalog Poetry Project in my previous blog post. So, quickly: the entries by Robin Harris consist of four short free-verse poems written on catalog cards. Some refer to the books indexed on the card while others are more concerned with the melancholy nostalgia involved in trading in file cabinets for computer files. To be honest, I couldn't quite decipher her handwriting on number 3, and having never used actual cards in my library work, didn't identify much with the sentiment. Harris does seem to have a gift for growing imagery out of a sparse crop of words, however. What I really want to know is what the multi-colored recycling stamps mean, though.
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