11/21 Leadership

11-21: Leadership
Podcast
On 5/10/2007 Library Geeks posted a podcast that was an interview with Gary Price who is one of the top men running ask.com. Price is a librarian who started Resource Shelf, a website that is full of info about interesting, new resources available on the web. Price started this with the main goal of keeping himself informed and then it exploded into a successful site that made him well-known and led to his new job. Most of this hour long podcast was a personal interview with Price that dealt with how he got his job at ask.com. However, there were some interesting points brought up about librarianship itself in the podcast, though not as many as I expected. Price claims that he got to where he is by a method of being politely “in your face” with what libraries can offer. He claims that as soon as people hear the work library they tune out and think that it is pointless to continue listening. In part, the podcast set forth the claim that this is because people think they have Google and therefore don’t need help finding information, but that 90% of people will not ever get to the awesome resources found even on Google since the average person never clicks past the first five or six hits that come up. A librarian, Price claims, is invaluable since it is their job to know which resources are most valuable and to direct patrons to them as quickly as possible. Tying to this, there was some discussion about the value of an “old school” librarian who, even though the topics in three books may be the same, can direct patrons to the resource that is most valuable to them. Price also adds that the average person’s idea of advanced searching on the web only entails putting brackets around the search terms. The librarian’s job is to really help people do advanced searching to find what they need since the average person isn’t even aware of what databases are available, if any. Much of this podcast, since so much of it was an unexpected interview, did not seem overly helpful. However, there were some interesting points that do directly relate to running a library. I think it is interesting that Price has this in your face attitude that works well. He made the claim that librarians really have to show the value of what they can do in terms of saving time to patrons and then they will have made a friend for life. After that connection has been made, the librarian can then bring out other cool tools that patrons may have never considered using. I find it interesting, being new to the librarian scene, that librarians are so overlooked. However, upon looking back to my own education I too never used them as a resource. I think that being more outgoing and getting involved in what the patrons are doing and offering my services will make a big difference in how patrons view the librarian. I also find it interesting that a librarian is now one of the main people running ask.com, which I have never really considered to be more than just a basic website. Yet here is a man who is a librarian and who runs a website full of information to help people, just like what happens in an actual library. It certainly makes me view my future job possibilities in a new light. I see form this podcast that shamelessly promoting oneself may be the only way to be a truly effective librarian since so often people just don’t consider librarians at all.

LM_NET
On 8/23/2010 Louise Leonard posted “K-8 Daily Newscast”. My first reaction to this was, “oh, my!” since it appears to be another thing that a librarian at a public school must do. I think, though, that the oh, my moments are passing and now I’m seeing that the librarian is really a person who can do anything. Leonard says that she has been given the responsibility of coordinating and running the daily newscast system at her school. She has to involve all the students in making the newscasts, film them, and run them during the school day for all to see. I think what I find frightening about this prospect is that I have absolutely no background in journalism/news casting. What would I do if I were in her position and asked to do such a thing? I suppose I’d learn how, but with the job of full time librarian I’m not sure where that time would come in. I wonder what all these jobs really say about the school’s perception of the librarian. Is the fact that everything I read imply that librarians get he left over jobs mean that schools don’t value the library or the librarian? I never considered this possibility in all honesty which may be why so much of what I’ve been reading in the Woolls books and on LM_NET has come as surprise. I know that our school librarian is the tech lady but whenever the issue is greater than a simple answer we have a great tech department we are referred to. Were librarians always a jack of all trades? It would be nice to know how the job role evolved over the bad economic times for simple comparisons sake. It’s equally interesting to me to see if the role will devolve when things look up and schools can afford to hire people.

David DiGregorio posted “LM_NET Time warp” on 8/21/2010. The overall gist of it was that school are taking out Smart boards and looking to a newer, cheaper LED device that does the same thing for half the money. Along with this, schools are retraining staff on how to use technology in the classroom. As a librarian, I will no doubt be the tech lady and I expect that I will be one of the people doing the PD and how to use technology in the classroom. What I find interesting about the post most was the comment that, “Teachers are trained to use the technology only when appropriate and not over use ESPECIALLY IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES. In addition, a common sense approach is advocated summed up in this
statement - the beauty of the subject should drive instruction, not technology.” I think that in many ways technology has taken over in schools as schools a business and at least in my small town the reason I have a nice building to work in and good technology is that people actually move to our little countryside for the schools. After all, there isn’t anything else for them to come here for! I think it’s a fascinating idea to take some technology back out, or at least the overuse of it. We were in such a hurry to say that if it kept kids interested then it must be right that we never considered the fact that sometimes education gets lost in the ease of technology. Sure, kids are interested and there are less classroom management issues, but at what point are we no better than 90 minutes of TV? I can see that the concern at the elementary levels is that what we are really doing is bringing up a group of kids who may be incapable of learning without the feeling of watching TV and being entertained. I am by no means advocating boring class time all the time, but how are they going to do well on state tests in high school if they haven’t had to sit in a room without technology keeping them entertained since first grade? In fact, I think that when I become the school librarian I may bring this up and possibly offer training about how to use technology appropriately all on my own after school. At the very least I could send out a power point to those who were interested.

8/22/2010 has a post on LM_NET by Donna Gallagher about the use of dogs in the library. The posts from other librarians were wonderful and most of them claimed that animals in the elementary library create a learning environment that the kids love and that encourages hesitant readers to read and enjoy library time. I am a huge advocate of animals in the library (or school in general) as they really do help learning. It’s been proven that if a kid has something furry to touch (i.e. not a fish) then they will learn better. Especially at the elementary levels kids will find a new connection to the library that is positive. However, I have concern about the workability of this most schools today. Since the only really furry creatures that would fit in a school library would be a dog or cat, I can foresee the huge obstacle of kids who are deathly allergic. Then there’s the issue of what would happen if a troubled student tried to hurt the animal. In all honesty, I don’t know that I could react with my teacher hat on. I think a program where the animal came in for a few days would be awesome and a great compromise. It would be great for kids to learn to see the library as a fun, new place and then the kids who had serious allergies could simply not go to the library that day or two. However, I did check with my principal and pets are not allowed at school for the reasons listed above.

Blogs
Library advocate posted “Athletes as Leaders and Readers at San Mateo College” on 11/17/2010. The short post was accompanied by their promotional video that explained that the three main goals of the program were to 1. Promote literacy to kids 2. Shows athletes that they need to and can be leaders and 3. Have the athletes promote physical activity to kids in an attempt to stop childhood obesity. Though this is a college and it would work very differently in my high school, I think this a great way for teens to get involved with kids and promote the library as well. We do have a childhood development class at my school where young children (ages 3-5) come in once a week and the students play with them and read to them and try to teach them things. Though this program is currently run by the childhood development class, this class is mostly comprised of teen girls. We have a massive A+ program at school that would benefit from extending the idea that the childhood development class started with and expand it out to our sports kids. I think that this would not only be a way for the library to reach a group of students who stereotypically don’t use the library, but it would also be a great way to break down the idea that cool kids don’t use the library (which we all know isn’t true) and for the athletes at school, who are always stretched anyway, to get extra A+ hours. There’s no better marketing in a school like mine that has a huge focus on football than to tie football to whatever it is you want to promote. In this case, the library would, at the very least, get some good attention.

Swiss Army Librarian posted “Reference Question of the Week” on 11/14/2010. This post was based on a tweet Herzog made about the oddness of shelving magazines that have a publication date three months down the line. At first I started reading this because I too have always found it odd that magazines came out so far in advance, and it turns out I was not the only one. After Herzog tweeted about the oddness of this situation, a friend emailed him to inform him that the date is actually the remove-by date that the publisher gives. Even working at a bookstore for several years, I still didn’t know this and I wonder how many librarians know this. Personally having never worked in a library or paid much attention to the magazine section at the library, I wonder how it works in a library. Since the library purchases the magazines for use (as opposed to stores who purchase them to sell), do we remove outdate magazines by the date listed? Or do we only keep a few months back? And then what happens to them? Perhaps not the most thrilling of questions, this does at least interest me in seeing how well this area of the library is ran since I never go to when I go to the library and Herzog, who is a librarian, didn’t know what was going on with the funky dates on the covers.

On 11/15/2010 ALA Teach Source posted “Marred by Shelving,” which deals with all the issues of lending eBooks. I find this a particularly interesting topic since the invention of the eReader, I would argue, has made readers out an entire generation that may not have ever read. Given the preoccupation with technology in today’s youth and the fact that a screen is far more comfortable to most teens today than a piece of paper, I think the debate over lending eBooks is a serious one. I know that publishers have been saying that the lending of eBooks is tantamount to theft of the books since no gets the royalties, but I agree with Peters (the author of the post) that this is simply another shift in libraries. Public circulation libraries developed out of private libraries where, essentially, friends lent books to other friends. Now the Kindle and Nook offer similar functions. I agree with Peters that this will simply be another shift in society. The Kindle and Nook already offer lending between friends (though I don’t think I could get through most books in the 14 day period that both devices allow), so I can’t see that there is much difference between this function and a function that could be developed for libraries. The CEO of Faber and Faber said in October that their company was going to allow eBooks to be lent at libraries but only if a patron would come in and physically download the book from the library. Now, I ask you, what good is that? Isn’t the whole point of our digital age that we cannot often get to the library during business hours in the digital age? Aside from that, Peters end his post with the thought that eReaders are like cell phones and regardless of one’s financial state, soon everyone will own one. This, he sates, will make shelving much easier and so end his post. I am conflicted though on how positive this end really is. What this really means is that there could very likely come a day when libraries are small one-room facilities with one librarian and only a few books. I suppose this might be good as it would allow for the library to save on the salaries of all non-librarian staff, but what a dismal picture too! As a child I loved roaming the aisles of the library. What if my future, currently non-existent kids don’t ever get that pleasure? And, even worse, what if that leads them to not love reading like I do?

Empowering Learners Chapter 4
I definitely agree with the statement on page 46 that claims, “As interactive technology has come to permeate every aspect of daily life, leading businesses and organizations have changed the way they work in order to thrive in this new global economy. Likewise, schools must move toward a more connected, collaborative form of leadership.” This is so very true. Many schools, mine included, are trying to move toward a more technology based educational model. The problem with that is that it takes money and that is not freely available now. As a librarian, I think it would be my duty to try to get as much technology into the classroom as possible without it costing a ton (and free would, of course, be best). This too I think applies to the “Building Relationships” portion of the reading. Being a leader in the school is necessary both to keep my job and to keep the funding for the library up. I think that this really will come down to my promoting technology in the classroom, which will ultimately lead to less behavior issues, and teaching faculty how to use the technology in an appropriate manner so that it isn’t technology for the sake of technology (something that I perceive to be a huge issue in education).

Woolls Chapter 12
I can’t explain it, but there is some sick part of me that really loves the idea of marketing my library. Perhaps it’s because I feel that the library can offer too much that I am so excited about it, or maybe it’s because whatever I’m going to be marketing is going to be awesome and I know it. I agree with the section that claims that a friendly ambience and a library that is not punitive (fines, grouchy librarian, etc) are some of the best ways to advocate for a library. The list on page 192 is a nice, comprehensive list of things I need to include in my library or into my running of the library. I am particularly excited about the special collections part of the list. I have never heard if we have any special collections at all at our school. If not, I suppose I’d best get on developing some if/when I take over. I know that there is a small teacher development collection, but I don’t know where it is housed and I only get an email about it once a year at the start of school to remind all teachers that it exists. I think that marketing anything on the aforementioned list will not be too hard. Though the school is huge, it is a combination of two very small towns and as such the local newspaper is always excited to come around and write an article about it. Additionally, given that so much negative press has been given to our school due to budget cuts, teacher layoffs, and building restructuring, I think it would be good all around to have some positive news in the newspaper abo9tu the school. This year we have a b budget reduction committee and for the first item since we started talking about cutbacks the library is now on the chopping block, so a little good press may go far in terms of the community supporting the library rather than cutting the budget and laying off an elementary librarian. I’m also really excited about adding new services to the library (another item from the mighty list on 192). I know that there is a book club now, but that’s most of what we offer. As I’m just starting out my program I am unsure of what other things I could add, but I do keep getting ideas and look forward to adding them in.

Woolls Chapter 14
I am very interested in the “Electronic Publishing” section of this chapter. Sadly, it isn’t very long and doesn’t go into details about the legal issues with copyright or suggestions for how kids access the books. I assume we would have to have a computer for every kid or, at the very least, a computer for every other kid and they could share. However, this is something I could totally look into as a librarian in order to save the district money. I particularly like the idea that schools only have to buy the parts they need/want instead of spending $110 on a book they only use half of. I think eBooks for reference books, though, is an excellent idea and a great way to supplement the library’s collection. Not only can they be used by kids at home at all times (not that any kids would wait until the night before the research) and if there are already a ton of books in the library over the end of WWII (for example), then I could only spend money on what I really need for the electronic books, which would be the middle and beginning of the war.

I am also very interested in podcasts. I really, really look forward to creating some for school. I expect once I get good at it, it won’t take long to make one and it will play into the school’s mission to become more technology based, and it would draw kids in. I like the idea of book talks and maybe getting some local authors to come in and talk. I also am excited about it becoming a place to talk about new library tools and upcoming school events. Yet again, this just seems to be another way for the library to become a more central part of the school than it already is.