Category Archives: Libraries

Do I Really Have to Leave the Role of School Librarian?

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Do I Really Have to Leave the Role of School Librarian To Do the Work of a School Librarian? | The Unquiet Librarian

via Do I Really Have to Leave the Role of School Librarian To Do the Work of a School Librarian? | The Unquiet Librarian.

Thanks to strong progressive teacher-librarians from the past and from our current staffing, we have tried hard to develop and secure instructional services and nurture participation and collaboration for my large (1800 gr10-12) high school.  We have become a valid vibrant learning commons that students, teachers and admin all support but we have a culture to build on that made the library program important. We have 1.6 TL and 1.0 Clerical and ongoing budgeting and engagement but the landscape of the school library is changing so fast we cannot keep pace. Policy, pedagogy , demographics and much more have changed beyond our ability to lead. We do our best and we are strong but change outstrips our abilities and energies.  Therefore, when I read in SLJ the role as technology coordinator I rather snickered with cynical zest because that is a role I have evolved into from the start. We are the technology, information AND pedagogy hub. That said, we are given less influence and participation in the policy making and decision-making than we once had. As the demands and needs changed we responded but now the system is too fast and too top heavy to truly DESIGN  process or practice.  We have become a digital triage center. The irony is that our community still SEES us as a content place. We have not reduced or slashed any sector of our school library anatomy but rather have tried to cope by adding on more limbs and bionic parts. Like HAL we may be losing our sanity. thanks BJH, Al Smith

@buffyjhamilton writes…

“…The new issue of School Library Journal features a cover story called, “Next Year’s Model: Sarah Ludwig left the library, became a tech coordinator, and forged a path to the future.”  Unless I have misinterpreted the article, author Linda Braun wonders if school librarians have to leave the library and take on a completely different job title to do the work of a modern school librarian.  The thesis seems to be that school librarians taking on job titles other than school librarian, like “technology coordinator”, might be the future of the profession.  While I’ve  had my own misgivings about the future of  the profession, I respectfully disagree with Linda Braun and would argue that such a path will only lead to the demise, not the flowering, of our profession’s future.”…….”We’ve wondered about the future of the profession and the challenges of becoming more immersed as an instructional leader and pedagogy specialist in a current model of school librarianship that is physically limiting in the sense that one person, two at best in most places, is expected to excel in multiple roles for student populations that might vary from 850 to 2500 students and up to 100+ faculty in a building; in some cases, school librarians are being asked to be a teacher, program administrator, information specialist, leader, and instructional partner with no planning period and no clerical assistance.

(unquietlibrarian)

I’ve unwittingly become a bureaucrat!

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I’ve unwittingly become a bureaucrat! EEEkk!

At the closing of last school year I was intrigued by a colleagues blog post outlining a conversation with a community leader. What’s the difference between a teacher and a bureaucrat? The question was not sarcastic. Ms. Grass outlines the thought processes this naive question generated. Given the current technological swing, standardization and centralization of public education, I think we should all read her blog. ( ps. not only is she a very intelligent educated aboriginal woman teaching in Lilloet, she is a progressive teacher I’m proud to say was a grad from MBSS when I was there. )

Why do I return to her post today? Well, because I have spent the past 6 weeks, notwithstanding job action, doing nothing but scrambling to serve students stuck in a school system burdened by brand new state of the art modern technology that was implemented with poor educational design. No fault of individuals I am sure. I’m spending almost all my time with learning or pedagogy but technical triage! Directors, admin and technicians alike are all very hard working and nice people as a rule but the sum total educational reality has been a disaster. I have spent enormous hours interfacing bad system design with frustrated kids who just want to get access. I feel like I am in Haiti. I know it is relative but honestly, I get lectured to be accountable and encourage personalize learning but… how, when the fundamentals are blocked by technical walls?  It may not be a conspiracy or censorship but it is a real blockade that my administrators don’t  fathom.

What have I learned?

  • that as a technological competent teacher-librarian who developed a plan centered around service, I became an indispensable bureaucrat
  • that, paradoxically, as technology gets more powerful and transparent, service desks like libraries get proportionately inundated with demand for inservice
  • that the more we get motivated by powerful technologies to communicate, that paradoxically, the more we forget the value of content and discourse
  • the greater the tools to liberate the individual, the greater the pressure institutions want to standardize and seek ‘ efficiencies’

So, what does a professional do when confronted with forces that oppose his sensibilities? I don’t know but whatever I do I’ll resist with every bit of DNA the movement to be a bureaucrat.

Grass, Starleigh. ‘What’s the difference between a bureaucrat and a teacher?’ Blog. June 20, 2011. (Grass, Jun 20)

BCTLA Summer Institute: Social Media, Media Literacy, and Youth Culture

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BCTLA Summer Institute: Social Media, Media Literacy, and Youth Culture
Date: July 26, 2011
Time: 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Location: Rockridge Secondary School, 5350 Headland Street, West Vancouver
Cost: $50

Contact: Arlene Anderson, BCTLA Professional Development Chairperson, arander@sd45.bc.ca
Registration: Contact Arlene as above and/or download registration form; deadline July 8

Join Wendy Chen, a doctoral candidate in Media, Culture, and Education at New York University, to learn how students are shaping the information landscape as writers and publishers as well as how you can help your students use digital content critically.  Lunch will be provided.  The cost is $50.00.  Register via email with Arlene Anderson: arander@sd45.bc.ca.  Registration deadline: July 8, 2011.

SOCIAL MEDIA, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, AND GLOBAL YOUTH CULTURE

The proliferation of mobile technologies and the intensifying forces of globalization have significantly expanded the possibilities for communication, collaboration, and participation in media cultures.  Join us as we explore some of the key developments – citizen journalism, online social justice campaigns, digital remixes and mashups – and their relevance for a new generation of 21st-Century learners.  Provocative visual examples of user-generated content and discussion of key concepts will illuminate the power of social media and consequently, the changing notions of creativity and community.

NEW APPROACHES TO MEDIA EDUCATION

Outside school walls, in leisure time and other informal learning environments, young people develop a range of media expertise.  These skills and competencies are rarely addressed in the classroom.  Why is media education necessary, and how can it be approached in the service of critical thinking?  How do we prepare young people to navigate their complex, mediated realities?  This workshop employs hands-on activities and current media resources to explore the ways in which curriculum can be made relevant to students’ everyday experiences in the media-saturated landscape.

Schools Eliminating Librarians as Budgets Shrink – NYTimes.com

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Too bad the skilled school librarian has never been needed more than in recent years. People do not understand that adequate appropriate library support is critical if we want students to be more than just data miners and plagiarists. In my school library, we are spending more and more very long days because teachers and students both are demanding more support for the complex digital world in learning. In a high school of 1800 Grade 10-12 teens, 1.6 TL’s working 12 hour days isn’t even enough support.  Google skills are simply not enough. If we want 21st C learners that everyone espouses, cutting librarians in schools is just counter productive.- Al Smith

Schools Eliminating Librarians as Budgets Shrink – NYTimes.com.

Budget belt-tightening threatens to send school librarians the way of the card catalog.

“The dilemma that schools will face is whether to cut a teacher who has been working with kids all day long in a classroom or cut teachers who are working in a support capacity, like librarians,” the city’s chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky, said in an interview.

In New York, as in districts across the country, many school officials said they had little choice but to eliminate librarians, having already reduced administrative staff, frozen wages, shed extracurricular activities and trimmed spending on supplies. Technological advances are also changing some officials’ view of librarians: as more classrooms are equipped with laptops, tablets or e-readers, Mr. Polakow-Suransky noted, students can often do research from their desks that previously might have required a library visit.

“It’s the way of the future,” he said.

Nancy Everhart, president of the American Association of School Librarians, whose membership has fallen to 8,000 from 10,000 in 2006, said that, on the contrary, the Internet age made trained librarians more important, to guide students through the basics of searching and analyzing information they find online.

Future of the BCTLA Forum + RSS

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RSS FEEDS AND BCTLA FORUM

Couldn’t agree more Mary… Everyone should study CommonCraft whiteboard video explanation.
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english. Or YouTube equivalent.

It is indeed a core library skill because it can be used to deliver content to patrons directly or through subscriptions. All the new web tools are so integrated with RSS now it is very easy. It is even integrated nicely into mobile phone alerts, etc. For Social Studies teachers and current events or even EBSCO queries, news feeds bring the content to you not the other way around.
Heather Daly blog: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/BCTLAInCirculation

More of my rambling….

We are teaching every class we can to learn about RSS and try it out. The concept is pretty easy with kids who experience FB feeds daily. Many teachers seem much more engrained in the email delivery model. They seem to believe that news feeds are just another thing to check. Until colleagues need or practice reading in a professional learning network model many powerful communication avenues remain closed. The kids will explore it because of social motivation. I think adults are the same just channeled by their interests. My challenge for change is to give my new principal 24/7 blogging and Twitter support so she can introduce that medium as her primary Admin bulletin medium rather than email lists. Why! Because her bulletins are read religiously every Monday morning as part of our faculty culture.
I find that:
Coaching is better than instruction.
On demand better than scheduled
Modelling better than persuasion

BCTLA Ning at http://bcteacherlibrarians.ning.com/

On Wednesday, June 15, 2011, Maryann Kempthorne wrote: >
> I do feel. If there was some coaching on using RSS it would help the transition. >
> Using RSS is a core library skill these days anyway
> Maryann

Heather Daly’s CASL Award Acceptance Speech

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Heather Daly’s Award Acceptance Speech

The following speech was delivered on May 27 in Halifax, at the Canadian Association for School Librarians AGM and Awards Ceremony. Heather on the occasion of accepting the Margaret B. Scott Award of Merit:

“Thank you so much for the honour of naming me the 2011 recipient of the Margaret B. Scott Award of Merit. It sincerely means so much to me.

http://bctlaincirculation.blogspot.com/2011/06/heather-dalys-award-acceptance-speech.html