Reflection on Reading, 15 April

This week's readings, the last of the semester (links require UM log in):

• "When Teachers Drive Their Learning" by Joseph Semadeni
• "The C's of Our Sea Change: Plans for Training Staff, from Core Competencies to Learning 2.0" by Helene Blowers and Lori Reed
• "Planning an Online Professional Development Module" by Kristin Fontichiaro

The Semadeni reading proposed an interesting program: teachers are given time and a framework for professional development during contract hours (what I take to mean school hours). The teachers are encouraged to participate in the program through incentives and administrative support, including monetary incentives. According to Semadeni, teachers are motivated not just by money, but by the ability to choose what they will learn and the opportunity to learn during their normal working hours. That isn't hard to believe - I can only imagine that most teachers would embrace any opportunity to better serve their students, but their demanding schedules, as Semadeni explains, get in the way of professional development before or after school hours. 

Reading articles like this is both inspiring and frustrating. The program seems perfect. The teachers are learning, the students aren't being neglected, and the administration is happy. But then why aren't all schools doing this? Inertia on the part of school boards and administrators? Probably. 

Of course, this article echoes the way that we have been learning in this class, especially the ways in which we have been observing each others' work in addition to completing our own. There hasn't been the element of choice, but that is to be expected when you're taking a course for credit. 

The articles by Blowers and Reed and Fontichiaro (of course) also discuss development programs much like this class. The "Learning 2.0" program discussed by Blowers and Reed is described as "summer reading" for adults, and now that I think about it, that feels about right. We've gone through a list of practical skills for librarians (much like a summer reading list) and done our best to learn each one. A lot of our learning has been self-guided, as Fontichiaro discusses in her article (imagine that). It's interesting to see familiar methods for teaching explained in a library context; maybe when I'm a librarian, I'll institute a similar program in my library. Memes and all. 

For the exactly 0% of those reading this who aren't aware, this is the last blog post required by the course. It will probably be my last post all together - blogging isn't really my thing, it seems. I am on Facebook, though, and Twitter (@kriskottenbrook). And LibraryThing (though I kind of hate LibraryThing and you'd do better looking me up on Goodreads). And Tumblr, but you'll have to hunt me down if you want to find me there.

So, I leave you with the immortal words of Ferris Bueller: "It's over. Go home. Go."

- K

             

Reflection on Webinars

Last week, instead of having a normal class period, we presented a webinar that we had planned in groups over about a week. We also viewed some of our classmates' webinars. This was the first of the practical exercises we've done that I don't feel went half as well as it could have. I observed some possible causes of this both while presenting my own webinar and viewing others'.

First, communicating with people when there is no feedback is much harder than it sounds. And it sounds pretty hard. I had expected that I would be more comfortable just talking to my computer than I normally am talking to a room full of people, but that was definitely not the case. Physically standing in front of a group and talking gives me a feeling of being grounded; I can use body language and read the audience's body language in order to tailor my speech or pacing. When all I had to look at was the slide I was on and an incredibly distracting chat box, I felt like I was speaking into a void. It was like practicing a speech in an empty room, except that people could actually hear me. The webinar that I viewed a couple of weeks ago had seemed scripted, and at the time that was off-putting. But after having to do this myself, I completely understand why people just read off of a script.

An effect of not feeling "grounded" in my presentation was that I sort of oscillated between just talking without thinking much about it and completely losing focus and losing my train of thought. Something that might help with that problem in the future would be to print out a copy of all of the slides so that I could remind myself of the context of the current topic. Just having something physical to hold and look at, rather than notes in a Google doc, might also be helpful.

One main point that I gathered from viewing other webinars (which were all done very well, by the by) was the importance of the slides the presenters used. The instructor had mentioned this before, but it was good to actually see it. It sounds shallow, but I have remembered the presentations with visually engaging slides much better than the ones with slides that were just bullet points on a plain background. Having pretty or dynamic slides to look at also reduced my urge to go on Facebook or do whatever else while the webinar played in the background.

I also noticed that the nature of the webinar format - pre-made slides and voices, but no video - smoothed over some problems that may have occurred on the presenters' end. I think that happened with my own webinar, and I know that it happened with the ones that I viewed. A member of another group told me that her group had done particularly poorly, but I never would have guessed that from what I saw. So that, at least, is reassuring.

On the whole, I found more to dislike about webinars as a format than things to like about them. For one thing, I didn't retain information from the webinars that I viewed. Because I relish the opportunity to whip out a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, I'll quote Giles: "The knowledge gained from a computer has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible." The webinars, while well-planned and well-executed, were intangible and thereby forgettable.

This isn't to say that webinars can't be a useful format. They overcome barriers such as accessibility (in some cases), distance, time constraints, and cost. But I think that they should be a last resort. If there is a better way to relay the same information to the same people, that is the route to take.

Reflection on Tweeting, 3 April 2014

The "reading" for this week was to join Twitter, build a network of at least 25 professionals in our fields, and tweet or re-tweet at least five times. After having done the minimal amount of work for this assignment, I feel comfortable commenting on the state of librarianship on Twitter.

An interesting thing that I immediately noticed was that, in contrast to the blogs we've been reading, the levels of professionalism on Twitter are highly variable. The most career-focused or academically-focused bloggers that I have been following are the ones tweeting about the season finale of Cougar Town. Even organizations such as the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (@cincylibrary) take on a very informal tone from time to time. This made it difficult to judge whether an account was worth following in a professional context; maybe an account sometimes tweets brilliantly about librarianship, or maybe it's really just all cat videos. Related to that was the observation that it's not always worth it to build a "network" of a bunch of librarians and information professionals if not all of those professionals tweet anything about the field. Although, some of the silly or lighthearted tweets from libraries and librarians go a long way toward reminding me why I wanted to be a librarian in the first place. Always a good thing.

Observing the difference between the content on Twitter and on personal blogs is a great illustration of how the medium influences the message. Twitter is great for short, one-off messages and links, less so for serious conversations.

Twitter is also a great tool for keeping up with the news and other recent developments. People often tweet links to articles, which are then re-tweeted throughout the original poster's network So if someone I follow retweets a link about school librarianship from someone she follows, that link shows up on my feed, and I see the story, which I may never have seen otherwise. You can also follow the Twitter accounts of organizations like NPR, which means that about a million news stories show up in your feed every day. For an information professional, this makes Twitter a great tool.

Finally, on a completely selfish note, Twitter is great for networking. It's the virtual equivalent of casually meeting someone at a cocktail party - you see a conversation, you say something witty, and you hope you make a good impression. I'm currently sidling over to some librarians from the PLCH. Would it be too gauche to tweet a photo of my business card?

Reflection on Class, 27 March

We spent a lot of time last week discussing the controversy over a plan to turn part of the Ann Arbor District Library's parking lot into a public park. Information on the (let's say) disagreement can be found here, though as always, I would advise against reading the comments.

This case sparked a lot of interesting conversations about how to handle inappropriate behavior in the library (and what constitutes inappropriate behavior), drug use as a community problem, and to whom a public library has an obligation.

Some examples of inappropriate behavior are pretty obvious - drug use or dealing, fighting, harassing other patrons, etc. Some are less so. For example, when is it loitering vs. enjoying the space? Are you loitering if you're sitting down? What if you've been there for the last eight hours? When does a patron's irritation over some detail become a behavior problem? Some of these examples strike me as especially problematic when you take into consideration a patron's identity. Maybe a young white middle-class couple is just sitting on the front steps to enjoy a beautiful day, but when it's two young black men, it's loitering. Maybe an older, articulate middle-class man becoming irate at the circulation desk can be solved by some smooth-talking from a staff member, but if the man is less articulate and doesn't appear to have bathed recently, security steps in. Clearly-written policies help with this (as Mari and I explored in our workshop), but there is still a lot of gray area that can result in librarians not serving patrons the way they should.

But even in cases where a patron's behavior is clearly inappropriate, there is some question of how best to handle the situation. I'll use bathing in the bathroom sinks as an example. It isn't illegal, it doesn't cause harm to patrons or staff, but librarians across the board seem to agree that we should not allow patrons to do it. As another student pointed out last week, though, where else can the offending patron go? If there are no shelters available and the patron is homeless or otherwise has no access to running water, what else are they expected to do? Just go without bathing until it's their body odor that gets them kicked out of the only place they have left to go? Another one of my discussion group members brought up the idea that a library's responsibility toward its patrons doesn't end at the library's front doors. Perhaps a case can be made that libraries should take a more active role in assuring that their patrons have access to resources outside the library. This might be too much to ask of smaller libraries with barely enough money to keep their own doors open, but in larger or more affluent communities (cough-Ann Arbor-cough), it might be doable.

This is an odd sort of thing to be thinking about a semester and a half into my MLIS. We spend so much time coming up with ways to get people to go to the library, and now we have to come up with ways to keep them out. Certainly it doesn't do anyone any good to have drug deals going on in the bathrooms, but I wonder if we're falling too much into the mindset that there are unwanted kinds of people rather than unwanted behaviors. I worry that in trying to make the library a better, safer place for everyone, we accidentally exclude the same people who have always been excluded.

Reflection on Reading, 27 March

This week, we read (links require U of M log in):

• “The Embedded Librarian Online or Face-to-Face: American University’s Experiences” by Matos, Matsuoka-Motley, and Mayer
• “Effective Teaching: Examples in History, Mathematics, and Science” from How People Learn
• “Online Webinars! Interactive Learning Where Our Users Are: The Future of Embedded Librarianship” by Montgomery

These readings concerned embedded librarianship, subject-based teaching methods, and the virtues of webinars.

The most interesting discussion was that of what makes embedded librarianship different from a librarian that acts as a liaison to a particular department from within the library. The article touched on issues of physical proximity, casual contact with students and faculty, and using virtual tools to bridge the physical gap if the librarian can't be physically within the department. All of this made me think about SI's own librarian and my experiences (or lack thereof) with her. I haven't gone to her for help yet - I'm one of those frustrating patrons that asks the normal reference staff - and I don't know if that would change if I just ran into her more or felt that she was more accessible. But I also remembered hearing that the emails she sends announcing her office hours tend to generate a lot of emailed reference questions. It might be that, in the case of Information Science, it is better to be virtually available than physically nearby. 

The chapter in How People Learn discussed the necessity for teachers to have both knowledge of the subject they teach and pedagogical knowledge, which in this context is an argument for embedded librarians and subject specialists who are both knowledgeable in their area and in librarianship. This is another example of librarians who don't fit into the concept of librarian-as-support-staff. If it's true that subject knowledge is not enough on its own to make a good teacher, then it should be equally true that in order to make the best use of the library, it is necessary to have someone who can combine knowledge of the subject area with knowledge of information service. I should probably remember that next time I have a library-related reference question. 

The last article was a short one extolling webinars as "the future of embedded librarianship." I don't know how true that is, since "webinar" is not the sexiest of terms and might not appeal too much to college students. But the author is right in saying that virtual reference and instruction are where librarianship, especially, I think, academic librarianship is headed.
I also think that continuing to ask ourselves how we can handle the transition to this new internet thing is not a constructive way to approach the topic. Librarians are making this way too complicated, and they're setting themselves apart from their students in the process. Many college students are not new to the internet. We have been online since we were little kids - it's as natural to us as the "real" world is. By continuing to treat the internet like some new unexplored frontier, you're dating yourselves and undermining your own credibility. All you really have to do is use the internet to present information in a way that feels natural and familiar. Trust your instincts.
Also, keep in mind that for many new college students, the internet is not the unfamiliar environment - the library is. By making as many of your resources virtual as you can, you're removing some of the cognitive barriers that prevent students from using the library. You're making it more familiar, not less.

- K

Reflection on Class, 20 March

Presenting a workshop during our last class was a strange experiment. In terms of tone, it felt a lot like a normal student-led discussion. Where it differed, though, was in terms of the content and each participant's relationship to it. My partner and I were in a position of teaching, and the rest of the group was in a position of learning (during our turn, at least). What was strange about that, though, was that I didn't feel that I had the authority to be teaching our topic. I understand that this was an exercise in the methods of conducting a workshop, but it still made me wonder about how the responsibilities of presenting a workshop compare with the responsibilities of teaching in a classroom setting.
There are obvious ways in which classroom teaching is different from library-based workshops. Workshops are usually intended for patrons older than grade school-age, for one thing. For another thing, they're not mandatory. Patrons attend workshops because they want to for whatever reason, be it to learn a skill, improve their careers (or begin them), or just because they want to learn something new. But they don't have to attend, and they don't have to stay if they do come. So it is important to present a workshop that is interesting more so than it is important to teach an interesting class. And it might be that workshops and classes have to be interesting in different ways. Entertaining vs interesting, maybe? I'm reminded of the spinach sundae analogy, but perhaps the opposite - fruit sorbet? Tasty and good for you? That's the goal for any teacher, of course, but most teachers don't have to worry too much about their students leaving in the middle of class if they miss the mark.
A lot of what it means to present a good workshop probably depends on the audience. A room full of working parents eager to get home and have dinner with their children may be similar in some ways to a room full of jaded graduate students who feel there are better uses for their time, but the two groups will probably respond well to different techniques. The sophistication of instruction may vary depending on the group, as well. The more they know about a topic, the more the presenter needs to know in order to make the workshop worth everyone's time.
That brings me back to my main concern for this and future workshops: am I qualified? My partner and I tried, for this workshop, to base everything we said on materials from reputable sources, but at some times it still felt like preaching to the choir. Obviously, if you're presenting a topic on which you aren't an expert, it is important to do enough research to at least be competent. That only goes so far, though. An expert is an expert because they have done the work required to achieve mastery of a subject, and that can't happen in a night-before crash course. Anyway, people can tell when you don't know what you're talking about or when you haven't prepared enough. But what if the topic is important - patrons have been requesting it or the library feels that it must address the topic - and you can't access a real expert? I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this situation occurs often in small or very under-funded libraries. I guess you just have to make do, then.
It has been great to learn and think about this aspect of librarianship, since I'm sure many of us will have to come up with answers to all of these questions before too long.

- K

Reflection on Class, 13 March

In last week's class, we discussed the ALA Code of Ethics. The discussion went somewhat differently than I had expected; another course I have taken featured a discussion of the Code, but that discussion didn't go much deeper than to apply the Code to various realistic scenarios in order to judge the best response. That's completely valid, of course, and a good way to teach what librarians are expected to do by many others in the profession. But I enjoyed the fact that we had a less clean and clear-cut conversation this time.
As some of my classmates have pointed out, a discussion about that ALA Code of Ethics should take into account that it is not binding. You can't be disbarred from librarianship for allowing a book to be banned. The ramifications for breaching the Code are social and informal, though they still may have a negative impact on a librarian's career or social life. Some librarians may chafe at that - why should they be held by a set of ideals that isn't even imposed by their profession itself, but by a particular organization within that profession? You could say that the concept of librarianship encompasses certain ideals (intellectual freedom, access to information, public service), but that's difficult to argue. When I Google "librarian definition", I get: a person, typically with a degree in library science, who administers or assists in a library. The same process with "library" gives me: a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to. What in those definitions leads to valuing the protection of users' privacy? The Code of Ethics is a result, then, of years of the collection of individual perspectives on what it means to be a librarian.
For the record, I personally do believe in the ideals set forth in the Code, and I think that they are an excellent set of guidelines for information professionals. But I'm also a person who already believes that censorship, withholding information, and violation of privacy are morally reprehensible in most cases. If faced with a patron who wants to challenge a book or just wants me to pull it from the shelf, I like to think that I would fight against it regardless of the situation. But as we heard in class, not everyone agrees with me there. And it's not as if you have to reject the Code of Ethics entirely in order to think that it's better to judge situations individually. That's a problem with any ethical system; like I said in my last post, it all comes down to intuition.
There's also, like always, the problem of other people. What do you do when you, the perfect champion of intellectual freedom, comes up against someone who doesn't think books about "the homosexual lifestyle" belong in a public library? You can't just hand them the Code of Ethics (what do they care what some fancy organization thinks about it?), and if you're me, you can't tell them what you really think. You can politely tell them about the challenge policy, making it sound as unappealing as possible, and leave it at that, but you're unlikely to appease that patron. I honestly don't know what the answer is, here. Me-me thinks that the library is better off without people like that, but librarian-me wants the library to be as inclusive as possible, even to people I don't particularly like.
Codes of behavior can create some issues, like the ones above. The ways in which they are followed or not followed and the way they interact with other morals and norms can lead to internal and external conflicts. I suppose the best thing to do is to decide if they code you're following solves more problems than it creates.

- K