Not So Distant Future

After our discussion at the Future of Libraries panel(see previous post) last week, and some general discussions around the blogosphere, it is clear there is profession-wide self-examination going on about libraries and our services and our customers.

In his post, “Who are Your Competitors” David Lee King ponders this subject, asking “What are you doing to compete for your patrons’ attention?”

King is a public librarian, but many of the same questions apply to us in school libraries, as evidenced from the conversation last week.  He offers some powerful suggestions such as growing your community, rearranging your “stuff” so that it is easier to find, etc.

That idea of really serving your community or meeting them where they live reminded me of a recent article in the Denver Post about the Adams County libraries giving up the Dewey Decimal system for a more bookstore based shelving system. ( In our newly designed library, we didn’t give up Dewey but we gave up Dewey signage in exchange for bookstore based signage.)  Their choice was based on the needs of their patrons, comments director Pam Sandlian Smith.   “For years, we’ve had focus groups and people consistently tell us, ‘I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how this library works,’ ” Sandlian Smith said. “So we decided to turn things upside down, and so far it seems to work well.”

King similarly writes about the influence of/competition from bookstores to our services, and challenges us to learn from them. I also wonder what bookstores are learning from libraries? I saw evidence of one thing yesterday when I was at Borders and ran across flyers for kids for their summer reading program, encouraging kids to read eight books in exchange for some savings on a purchase. And just marveled again at how sometimes bookstores are doing what we do better than we do it, or because our consumer base is more commercially oriented than it once was, they are attracting the patrons/customers that we once did. And they have the added ambiance of music and coffee
Which really aren’t hard things to bring into our libraries, either.

But then again, when I walk into the public library near my home, it’s as busy if not busier than the bookstore is. And certainly in terms of storytime and reading programs, they are swamped. And our school libraries seem far more involved with engaging patrons via technology than the bookstore which frequently barely has a few working computers. For example, a bookstore could be running book trailer videos on their computers, inviting patrons to review books or post things in the store or create a quick book review video or podcast in the store for other customers to watch–making it a much more interactive experience, which is one thing both school and public libraries excel at.  So we both have things to learn from one another.

King does ask many valuable questions that translate into school library questions.

How do we make things more digitally accessible? How do we reach out to our patrons/staff when they have laptops or computers in every room? How do we build a community either in person or through our websites or emails or whatever method works? How do we make our physical space community oriented? How do we involve teachers more, because that involves our students more by default? What services are wanted? (at our campus, one of our more popular services is having a set of textbooks that students can “borrow” during lunches to use in the library–it can be low tech, too!)   How are we incorporating student interests/habits into our space?  Do we allow access to sites that are their bread and butter?  How do we engage them?

So, what are you doing to compete for your patrons’ attention?

Or Where are we going?

I’m fortunate to be participating in a very exciting panel discussion Thursday evening on the future of libraries, how social networking fits into that, and how we design our facilities due to those changes.  It’s a great group–Joyce Valenza, Buffy Hamilton, Cathy Nelson and myself, meeting to discuss and answer questions.

The meeting will be held in Elluminate, Thursday June 18 at 7 CST–look here for more info.

If you have any questions you’d like to ask, feel free to post them here.

       Here are a few of my favorite websites to explore and learn with this summer.  See how they can help seed your curriculum in some way, enhance your website, or inspire you.

Animoto  — Create a quick and easy animated slideshow of your photos.  Use it with students to create visual poems, field trip presentations, progress of a plant’s growth, photos from around the world, etc.   You can even use it collaboratively by having different students in the class each add their own photo.

Slide.com – Another quick and easy slide show creator.  Very quick tool for putting together a visual slideshow with music (and no copyright to worry about since the music is on the site already).

FD’s Flickr Toys – This tool is a fun way to create visuals for/with students.  Use your own photos(upload one) or grab one from Flickr.com and add captions, make a poster, make badges,  etc. 

Etherpad –  This is a shared writing pad tool.  Start a new writing pad, then send the address of it to anyone you want to collaborate with.  Then you can both write on a document, chat about it, brainstorm together, etc.   It’s easy and no sign up for basic writing uses.  It’s not a word processor but just a collaborative tool to work on something together (which you could then put into a word processor!)

 Wordle  — A simple tool but with creative possibilities.  Paste in some text.  The site assembles the words into a collage, with the most used words larger than the least used.  Up the ante–paste in your syllabus, a poem, a study guide, keywords in your vocabulary lesson–voila–a unique visual representation.

Twitter –  Okay, so yes, everyone is raging about twitter and you may not see the point.  But check out these Teachers on Twitter  (sorted by subj. area) to see how they are using it.  Or consider researching who is professionally ”tweeting” in your field.   If you teach government, for example, many government officials are now tweeting their daily legislative activities.  Who in your field is on Twitter and is posting current updates?  Wouldn’t that be excellent for students to start following and get current updates?  And it’s a way to create an online teaching community for yourself as well.

  Poll Everywhere – Coolest feature?  That students can either text their responses or use the web and it links to an already created, live Powerpoint slide that updates the responses.  Forget the costly CPS systems, and use this for quick polls!   Other good polling sites– Polldaddy and SurveyMonkey.

FreeTech4Teachers –  One of our teachers, Kris Phelps, turned me onto this site, which has excellent new tools featured constantly, and serious lessons attached to the posts.  Very inspiring!

Wetpaint — If you’ve considered blogging or wiki-ing but haven’t gotten started, check out Wetpaint.  It is a very accessible Wiki site that resembles a web page and is easy to use and edit, with a nice layout and design.

Diigo or Delicious – You at home wishing all your favorites weren’t on your computer at work?  Or vice versa?  If you haven’t started using an online bookmarking tool, try one of these out!  Install the gadget on your toolbar, and then just click anytime you find a site you want to keep track of for later.  Diigo has the added benefit of allowing you to highlight what you find with your own notes.  A great tool to consider using with students during research projects, or even just as “current events” collection areas for their class.

These are just a few of my favorites of the moment.  Find what works for you!  and if you have some to share, feel free to add them here.  Of course, it’s not the tools, it’s what we do with them to enhance learning for our students! 

 Image credits:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidsandilands/1283533631/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomthephotographer/207345259/

This time of year, we librarians frequently get asked what we are reading and would recommend for summer reading.  Well, I’ve been having a bit of trouble responding because that means I would have to admit that right now I am re-reading Heidi!    Yes, Heidi, that childhood classic set in the Alps!  I don’t really even know what drew me to reading it–just saw it in a used bookstore, and had to have it.  

(What I find even more amusing is the odd assortment on my bedside:  Wikinomics duking it out with Heidi!)

So, what is your guilty reading pleasure?  What unexpected title have you picked up lately that you are embarrassed to admit to? and were surprised at?   Tell  what and why?

Lee Kolbert published this excellent list of summer reading for educators.  Check it out for some outstanding book suggestions that she gathered from her blog readers.

And one I would add if you haven’t read it yet–

Wikinomics–I’m rereading it and it is so illuminating in terms of how economics, education, and the media are changing.

Any others you’d recommend?

Last Friday we had a campfire in the library, literally    And students gathered around it and sang.  Is that what a library is for?  Maybe not in traditional terms, but anymore, that is what I think of when I think of library.  A place to gather together and interact with one another and with information.

After all, gathering together to talk and learn–isn’t that why we come to spaces like school libraries or social networks or even company picnics and more?

There’s been a discussion floating around the blogosphere and twittosphere lately, from Darren Draper to Karl Fisch to Joyce Valenza to Doug Johnson to Cathy Nelson to Buffy Hamilton, as we ponder the future nature of libraries and purpose of library services as devices become more and more mobile (and more “able”).

A library is, to my mind, both a service, and a place for people.   Think of a school building itself.  Where do people get together and learn together in most school buildings?  Where do they “mix” with other students not in their class?  Where do they interact with knowledge, books, technology, and adults?

The library serves as a learning commons of sorts (I am sure I am borrowing that term from one of my illustrious colleagues, so forgive me!)

Doug asks,

“Does a school need a library when information can be accessed from the classroom using Internet connected laptops?

The new question is uncomfortable, messy, and incredibly important and not restricted by any means to one particular school. It is one to which all library people need a clear and compelling answer.”

I think, no matter how ubiquitious the technology is, our students still read, still want to be inspired by reading, and even more importantly, still need a campfire around which to read, share, work, and learn.

Is that the only place that can happen?  No, so we do need to ask ourselves questions like Doug raises.

I responded to his post with some wisdom I gained from Don Tapscott in Wikinomics:

I was reading Wikinomics last night and ran over a passage that resonated with your questions. I want to blog about this further, but thought I’d share the passage, because it speaks to what we as librarians should consider:

Tapscott and Williams recommend taking stock, as you are here. They ask:
“What do your customers need today? What will they need in the future? How can we complement or add value to our existing products and services? What new market opportunities present the greatest opportunities for growth? As we develop new ideas, what can we deliver internally? What should we source externally? Are there exciting new clusters of innovation happening that we can tap into? Where can we work closely with partners to create even more value?”

I think as we each sort out the answers to those “essential questions” as Doug calls them, we should post our answers on our doors and windows for the school to see, just as Science Leadership Academy does.  We should let everyone know what we consider our core mission to be in simple, concise terms.  And then we should live that mission daily in our policies and practices and purchases.   All of which does involve asking ourselves some tough and important questions, but ones well worth asking.

In their chapter “The Wiki Workplace” in Wikinomics(Tapscott/Williams), the authors write about Ross Mayfield, whose company Socialtext tries to develop tools that meet the changing needs of clients to share, collaborate and have a flexible workflow.

It started me thinking about the workflow in schools, which on my campus is still very email oriented, for example. Mayfield points out in the book that email is a broken system, and that one could argue that only “ten or twenty percent of e-mail is productive.” So he felt that collaboration tools that adapt to the habits of the workplace were the key.

Similarly, John Seely Brown, formerly with Xerox, comments that the growth of wikis in many companies is a “bottom-up phenomenon” rather than a rigid top-down implementation of a tool.

So what does this have to do with schools?

I ponder as we work with teachers and administrators on using new “existing” tools, like wikis or podcasts, etc.–are these tools a bottom-up growth of something needed in our schools, or are the tools out there, so we are promoting their use? Do we have some responsibility to think even further outside of the box to examine the workflow where we are, and try to sort out what tools are needed and then bring THOSE tools in, or even create those tools for ourselves, rather than try to impose already created Web 2.0 tools on them?

So maybe this is a loaded question. But reading this chapter has made me recognize, for example, that I should be fighting to get permission for using chat software among our teachers. Chat is a natural for schools–quick, easy, and no need to clutter up our mailbox, for simple questions, like “Will you turn on the laminator” or “Is the lab busy next period?”

Secondly, it convinced me that we should take a really hard look at our needs and the needs of our teachers and students. Then we should go to vendors and venture capitalists and software designers and ask for tools that will really improve the workflow and creativity of our own workplace(or create them ourselves). For example, I LOVE flickr, but why don’t they feature the Creative Commons link more prominently (and why don’t I email them and ask them!)

Brown’s “bottom up” comment about institutions struck me also, and makes me think perhaps we should spend less time promoting web 2.0 tools that maybe fit our needs, but not our staff or students…? The age old dilemma–are we matching tools to a need, are we promoting a tool as a neat gadget and then the project is done “around the tool” or are we creating what we really need to convey a message properly or do a job well?

I suspect we would have more success among teachers if we stepped out of our own work methodology and really observed their workflow/struggles/frustrations/work with students/needs and thought hard about easy, effective and beneficial ways to meet them.

For example, wikis are a wonderful solution for building and storing knowledge, but ONLY IF STAFF WILL USE THEM! So maybe for some campuses and some purposes, that isn’t the tool. Or maybe it needs to be a “wiki-like” tool that integrates into the other management tools the district uses already instead of a separate “add-on” from an outside vendor, even if free?

And again for library research, what are the tools that are value added, (like Easybib.com which our campus naturally was drawn too), and what are the tools that feel like an “add-on” and don’t meet the needs at a natural level?

This requires us to step back from the maelstrom sometimes and observe our processes. Mayfield even points out that most of what employees spend their time on is ‘managing exceptions’ to the typical process and wrestling with new problems. Very true in schools I think–so how do we find tools that help us manage those exceptions–do we have a grab bag of innovative ideas handy? Can we think outside of the box? Can we allow for bottom up innovation?

Also, how can we help/get/encourage teachers to be part of the innovation and building? Do we ask them seriously what would work for them, what their “dream” software application is, what their dream of a better classroom for their students would look like, what they waste their time on that could be done better? Do we involve them in making the choices of what’s selected to solve issues? Do we collaborate with them on assignments to truly find the optimal tools online or for purchase?

How do we connect?

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayfresh/3471106034/

Beyond the power of what web 2.0 tools can do for our students in terms of connectivity, they are literally transforming our world, in their ability to help communicate news rapidly and at a grass roots level.

For example, this evening, I learned on Twitter that the Fort Worth schools had closed all their campuses due to swine flu, half an hour before CNN reported “Breaking News.”   I shared on Twitter what our school is doing regarding limiting extracurricular travel.  And I learned that a school in Alabama required a school bus bound for Florida turn around and return home with the students tonight.

Meanwhile, on Facebook, I found out that New Braunsfels school district had closed schools until May 11.

At the same time, I’m reading that Google has the ability to track pandemics before they even start(so far the feature is only active in the U.S.) by tracking the searches people are conducting.

These always on, grass-roots tools allow authorities to gather data that will be invaluable in dealing with a potential health crisis such as this.

Do we as educators truly harness or understand the incredible power of these tools to unify our world, to preserve our health, to share important news?  Are we modeling that for our students?  Because like the flu, our news now travels person-to-person via many means.   I know this isn’t any huge revelation but when you start seeing the congregation of data in circumstances like this and how important a part these tools can play, it’s like you “get it” all over again.

ARE WE SHARING this with our students??

In a recent post on the AASL blog, Buffy Hamilton discusses a debate that has been raging about an article in Teacher Magazine about classroom libraries versus libraries.  In thinking about the post, and the responses, I find myself over a barrel here. (see the link to the post I am referring to above). I agree with Miller that more books in more places are important for student literacy–that excitement about books carries a lot of influence with students.

I feel that we have to come to this discussion from a place of strength and assurance about our library programs, not a place of defense.    I don’t think there’s even a question that we need strong school library collections and staffing.
And as a former English teacher, I can relate with Miller’s desire to have a well-stocked classroom library.  My belief is that her students probably also continue to “check out” books whether from the library or her room, and they are reading, which is our ultimate goal.  And I also wouldn’t think to imply that as an English teacher she wouldn’t necessarily be selecting excellent titles for her students, because I myself remember scrounging for great young adult books for my students (though I also used my school library a great deal.)

Now, as a librarian, I too am troubled by the sometimes lack of connection between the classroom and libraries/librarians.  Sometimes we aren’t all working in concert with one another, and that is unfortunate.  I think perhaps we need a better understanding of how to support teachers’ needs.  But we have to remember that we keep the entire school and curriculum in mind–and that is part of our purpose.

I don’t perceive that Miller was arguing to replace one kind of funding with another, though of course that could happen.  And I don’t really love that some see her interest as competing with the interests of the library.

But I do think that in terms of the entire curriculum and entire student body, the excitement and support that a library can provide for students in terms of reading is significant and important.

Buffy asks some excellent questions that are worth serious consideration.  How do we encourage more of a “joint mission”?
How can we be in “more places” in our buildings so we take ourselves to the students?

What does a library look like?  Can’t both things be helpful to students?

(most of this post was also a comment from the AASL blog).

Libraries can tap into the “soul” of a school in so many different ways.    Last night, we hosted the Art Department’s annual “Don’t Des(s)ert the Arts” event, which allows our 7 art and photography teachers to display student art in a gallery format and parents and students to gather for an art opening.

Art is displayed on every surface in the library–we take down all of our displays, make all of our shelf space available, and accommodate the teachers however we can.

In return, the library is literally permeated with art.  There’s music, food, awards, and so many proud students and parents who come to see their work as important.  It’s a really powerful event for our student artists.

And all we have to do is throw our doors open and be accommodating.   I think the function of a library as a gathering place is overlooked sometimes.  It can be an inviting gathering place, a positive piece of the educational environment and a campfire for the school.

How do you invite your school into your library?