Celebrate change: let’s make the whole school a library. Keynote presented at School Library Association of Victoria conference March 2010, this presentation explores the rationale for extending school library services and influence beyond the physical space of the library, and to identify the benefits to learning and teaching (and student engagement) that will flow from such an approach.
14. attribution skills Original Chart: Cogdogblog (Flickr) Made available under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/817669 Original Chart: Cogdogblog CC-by 2.0
29. Library catalogue of the Institute of Historical Research in London, 2010 NotFromUtrecht
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Notas del editor
To celebrate and explore the opportunities that currently exist to extend the library services and influence beyond the physical space of the library, To identify the benefits to learning and teaching (and student engagement) that will flow from such an approach, To identify the implications for policy development, planning, digital citizenship, transformation of practice,
Biblioburro , traveling library in Colombia is a great example of a program to extend the library services and influence beyond the physical space of the library
So what is a library? What is a school library? What is a whole-school library? If we are going to make or be a whole-school library what are the indicators? If I walk into your school next year, how will I tell that it has become a whole-school library? That is, what is it about the library that is so powerful we want to spread it around? Is it space - people – resources - access to information - policies and processes - xxx What is our benefit statement? What is our point of difference? How would principals, teachers and students answer this question?
There are a few ways we can go about the task of becoming a whole-school library. Having just been through in my organisation a takeover/ a merger or a consolidation depending, I suppose we look for lessons from the corporate world on how to proceed. Or perhaps look to history for examples of successful colonisation? In fact I think many of the people who have embarked on this path tend to approach it with missionary-like zeal – passionate about converting others to our way of life. It goes something like: “We have something really good, we know what is best for you; come to us, do it our way and all will be well.” ICT has been 'sold'/ marketed to education pretty much as a magic bullet, very much using the conversion language -”if you just adopt this tool..., this netbook, this software, learning will be improved” Another way of achieving the goal of whole-school engagement is by way of bribery, incentives or the carrot approach, and some have tried this. “Change in this way and we will reward you – save you time, give you money or resources, or solve this problem for you.” As good-intentioned as this often is, I suggest that success might be more likely if rather than claiming to hold all the answers we position ourselves in terms of others’ needs rather than our own. Express the whole-school mantra in terms of the school, the teacher, the student – seeking to find their pain points, their issues and goals. Marc Lehmann (2010) discusses this in a business perspective as “No-one owns the customer”. As a service, we need to earn them. “ If you kill their problems, find ways to save them time and help them get what they want, then you are deserving of their trust. Then your grip will be firm. Quite often customers have faced intellectual deception and they end up “lawyer haters”. So they become careful with their trust. Then as a business you are only as good as your product, advice and possibly the most recent dealing you had with them.” Hubert Saint-Onge of The Mutual Group reiterates “the customer will go where they perceive greater value as they define it.” Relevance and value is in the eye of the beholder. http://www.saasu.com/2010/03/14/no-one-owns-the-customer/
A more complex model involves forming alliances or partnerships with key people – teachers, teams, movements Hay and Todd (2010) put this in terms of the imperative of “moving from teacher librarian actions to student outcomes.” Responses to their discussion questions generated many descriptions of what teacher librarians did and how important this was, but very limited material about measuring student outcomes as a result of library services. – a learner-centred vision not a library-centred vision If as a school we are pulling together, then these will be shared solutions to shared problems, not magic bullets provided by a third party
This is a form being tried in Australian education at the moment with the national partnerships program involving DEEWR and the states and territories. This is delivering a range of programs involving large sums of money, eg NAPLAN, teacher quality, [reference] across all sectors of school education. Some would say the national partnerships agenda has had elements of all these models, involving bribery, conversion, takeover and genuine partnership. One issue is finding out what is going on and trying to avoid reinventing the wheel, or spending the money on the same thing in two different systems.
Is the contribution of school-based personnel being ignored in this process? Certainly school libraries are conspicuously underrepresented in these activities- perhaps not surprising given the lack of library staff in department offices in states. Chief Information Officers are in charge of this agenda and they do understand about information management, knowledge management, information policy etc but also very aware of risk aversion. Work hard to ensure this is not at the expense of learning.
Now we have added complication or opportunity of a hastily convened House of Representatives Education Standing Committee inquiry into teacher librarians and school libraries in Australia, with submissions due in 1 month role, adequacy and resourcing of school libraries and teacher librarians in Australia’s public and private schools impact of recent policies and investments on school libraries and their activities; the future potential of school libraries and librarians to contribute to improved educational and community outcomes, especially literacy; the factors influencing recruitment and development of school librarians; the role of different levels of government and local communities and other institutions in partnering with and supporting school librarians; the impact and potential of digital technologies to enhance and support the roles of school libraries and librarians. Particularly strategic partners are usually Principals, school or sector leaders. Choose your partners carefully - there are situations and settings where instead of opening doors, you find teachers now go into lock down rather than simply closing the classroom door as they did before.
This brings us to the OPEN that I was asked to talk about today. To get outside the library walls we either need to influence someone to let us out, or need to escape Outing the library: we don’t need to be location specific any more – digital form sets us free. No need to ‘own’ space or be so highly territorial. Move the same content around between various delivery mechanisms Do we still need formal structured interaction – just in time, from anywhere, with anyone….? We need to address implementation speed, flexibility and connecting people – operating across virtual and physical space, mobile technology all elements of this future. “ Demand for new types of places, new ways of working” Ideas from BSF ‘Where is school’ and ‘changing workplace strategies’ slides (Greenwood) at http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/9433/Workshop%208%20-%20ICT.ppt
Libraries as gatekeepers to walled gardens with the mixture of positive and negative implications of that. Are we always watching out for the policies, procedures that are coming from a library perspective rather than a user perspective?
A new world…. Discuss: Is this is where we are heading? Are we there yet? What are the signs? Is this desirable? Quote from The CapeTown Open Education Declaration A good introduction to this topic is found in an international declaration on the benefits of open education Q. What qualifies as an open educational resource? The Cape Town Declaration defines open educational resources as "openly licensed course materials, lesson plans, textbooks, games, software and other materials that support teaching and learning." It goes on to state that these resources should be "... licensed to facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone." The text in the Declaration was inspired by the definition of open educational resources established by UNESCO in 2002. Open education philosophy can be very broad to include: open technologies open and transparent rules open and transparent assessment open curriculum processes, policies including selection
It’s not only the high cost of current education copyright licence regimes that makes use of openly licensed resources attractive. The ability for teachers to adapt, build upon, remix and re-share learning resources licensed this way has the potential to greatly enhance efficiency and creativity of teaching and learning. Allowing teachers and students to find resources that are licensed in a way that encourages them to use, share and modify content will assist educators to more easily develop relevant learning materials for their students, will encourage them to build on the work of others and to share their own work with other educators. The Horizon report (2009) refers to the personalisation of learning resources enabled by Web 2.0. “Many online texts allow professors to edit, add to, or otherwise customize material for their own purposes, so that their students receive a tailored copy that exactly suits the style and pace of the course.” This provides a challenge for schools and libraries that have systems set up around cataloguing and managing resources and textbooks as static physical objects rather than as flexible, digital content that can be repackaged according to individual needs. Creator of the Web 2.0 term, Tim O’Reilly (2006a) makes the point that Web 2.0 saves users re-inventing the wheel continuously, and admonishes data and service providers to “open your data and services for re-use by others, and re-use the data and services of others whenever possible”. We all learn faster when we piggyback on the learning of colleagues. The web builds faster when we build on the back of those who have similar requirements.
Creative Commons licences offer content creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them - to declare "some rights reserved”. An excellent way to introduce staff and students to the ideas behind open licensing is to use one of the short videos such as Mayer and Bettle [i] or Wanna work together . [ii] All Creative Commons licences require the user to provide attribution to the creator and just as we teach citation and referencing, school library staff need to ensure their community are informed about the correct and most effective way to fulfil their obligations in use of Creative Commons licences. A useful overview of the licences and their education is available from Smartcopying [iii] . A more detailed look at attribution requirements is also available in draft version, Creative Commons attribution guide for teachers and educators [i] Mayer and Bettle 2008 Creative Commons Australia http://creativecommons.org/videos/mayer-and-bettle [ii] Wanna work together 2006 Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/videos/wanna-work-together [iii] Creative Commons Resources” 2008 Smartcopying , MCEECDYA http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go/pid/525
This example of best practice attributino from Smartcopying Recommend that as a rule give attribution for ALL images/media used, even if public domain or purchased stock photos so that all subsequent users know immediately how to get permission themselves. What proportion of your time is spent teaching about copyright and how to reference information? What proportion of your time is spent teaching about open licensing and how to attribute under Creative Commons?
Skimming very quickly over copyright for education, concentrating on the Free for education and Open Education benefits and solutions. If you want to know more about copyright in education, use the website smartcopying.edu.au – NOT general copyright agency websites Start with some free for education licences and resource repositories, then move into Australian cultural repositories, then international open education collections Activities: have you seen this/used it?
But your library spends so much on purchasing content and information that it is not allowed to share. Copyright that might have worked OK for physical resources are now being applied to digital content which doesn't have anything like the cost of production and distribution. Copyright licences are costing way too much, and are far too restrictive. There is plenty of good quality content available via Creative Commons, Research is being put into open access research repositories Many of the world's most brilliant thinkers are sharing their output openly Look at the huge volume of blogging, of podcasting and other user contributed content. Top universities release entire courses, podcast their best lecturers. But your library is not guiding people to this valuable content through their catalogue. They are promoting commercial interests only. Public funded libraries should not promote commercial interests. Surely the commercial content providers can pay for marketing their own stuff. What incentives can we provide for students, teachers, leaders and library staff to share their content? It is important to make the process easy and also to ensure contributors receive feedback on who or how many people are accessing their content. Provide access for other users to comment and provide feedback, and take opportunities to promote and re-use locally grown material with acknowledgement in your own bibliographies/information packages. However, if we are to assist our community to move from being merely consumers of information to contributors and creators, one of the areas that requires urgent attention is our community’s understanding of 21st century copyright.
This is being picked up by other projects such as WikiEducator (2009), which is working to develop free content for e-learning. It is timely to consider how your school library policies reflect the value of openness? What proportion of your time is spent teaching about copyright as opposed to time spent teaching about open licensing and attribution of digital content? Does your school library catalogue include or promote open licensed resources and media? Other sources of learning resources with open licences are available at at Smartcopying website Creative Commons and other Open Access Resources on the Web [i] . [i] Creative Commons and other Open Access Resources on the Web 2008 Smartcopying MCEETYA http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go/cache/offonce/pid/525/ctnscroll_guidelinesContainer/1_1 The open education revolution depends on people in education freely sharing their resources What part do you play in this?
Wikimedia projects are the ultimate in the sharing economy Wikis represent one of the most accessible and flexible platforms for building knowledge and collaborative learning. Todd (2008) describes the power of wikis in terms such as “open, contributory, living documents that facilitate social construction of knowledge, negotiation of meaning, and group’s best effort, not an individual.” In helping students learn about wikis and collaborative learning, it is impossible to ignore the power and potential benefit of collaborative projects such as Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, and we do our students a disservice if we fail to address the specifics of these projects in our information literacy programmes. Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available over three million public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to all and to which anyone can contribute. The important page to work through with students and teachers is Commons: Reusing content outside Wikimedia . [i] [i] Commons: Reusing content outside Wikimedia , 2008 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia Commons.wikimedia.org – search for pictures, videos etc School libraries can support creative educators and students by providing and promoting efficient access to sources of open learning resources. The Wikimedia (2009) philosophy of bringing free content to the world isone example.
There will be some who look at the conference theme and see it as a defence mechanism from a profession they see as being on the verge of extinction. People madly reinventing themselves for survival. Faced with what some people see as the sole purpose or raison d'etre of libraries and storage of books – this may be understandable. People look at the technologies here now, and on the horizon that are seen to threaten 'the future of book'. Perhaps some in this room feel like this, and perhaps others believe that the book will continue unchallenged for their professional lifetime. As my colleague JT is fond of saying we need to decide whether we want to be like the blacksmith who vowed that the feel, the convenience, the smell of the horse would never be replaced by the motor car. Regardless of most people's love of their horse and appreciation of it as a superior mode of transport over walking, once they could afford a car they changed their practice. Eventually a tipping point was reached where to travel by horse became less convenient, less 'normal' than travel by car. At that point the blacksmith made a logical decision to add skills as an auto mechanic to his portfolio. I don't think there is any question that most library staff are coping well with transition.
Kevin McCaney “ Whether it comes in hardcover, paperback or an LCD screen framed by high-grade plastic, you still can’t judge a book by its cover.” http://gcn.com/Blogs/Tech-Blog/2010/02/Ebooks-message-readers-comments.aspx Kerrie Smith: http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2008/12/19/the-e-book-re-visited Carmel Egan: http://www.theage.com.au/national/students-to-dump-textbooks-for-ebooks-20090815-elsu.html Is the iPhone the ultimate e-book reader? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_the_iphone_the_ultimate_ebook_reader.php The distinction between journal, article, book etc and the container is not relevant in digital world Libraries lending Kindles: http://ireaderreview.com/2009/06/16/libraries-lending-kindle - recommend once you have transfered your content that you unregisterthe device through the settings menu on the Kindle. This is because once the device is registered you may make purchases to the default card on the account with out having to log in, and thus preventing a patron from making an accidental purchase on your account. Check out Wikipedia for diverse format types, readers etc Benefits: less shelf space Consider the future: What will a book look like? A database? A journal? What new forms of information may develop?
We would regard as quaint (or perhaps pitiful) anyone who given the opportunity to automate their library catalogue, chose not to; or who chose to go it alone in cataloguing of resources rather than make use of centralised, shared catalogue services. Where there is an efficiency, effectiveness or service benefit to a new way of working, and particularly when there is a positive learning outcome, school libraries are often amongst the early adopters. Upskilling and applying tried and true processes learned through years of working with books, can be applied to digital content and probably to future content and technologies as yet undreamt of. Our not so distant ancestors coped with dramatic transitions in transport, electricity and telecommunications. I don't think we have much to fear – unless the only future we are prepared to contemplate is a lifetime as a blacksmith.
In fact there is another institution that was affected by the horse to motor car and which fits the library better than the blacksmith, The inn existed out of the need to provide services around the transport services industry: allowing travellers to change horses, to find refreshment and accommodation. When the inn no longer had to give priority to their role in storing and managing supply of horses, it retained its role serving the needs of the traveller and their community. This is a nice picture of the school library's role in supporting and serving the needs of the learner and our community. Our services revolve around the people and their purpose, not primarily around the tools and skills we have been trained in. Like the inn, the library is a physical meeting place, a place of support and source of advice for the journey. It is valued as a safe and trusted service, where the client arrives to find everything they expect/require ready for them and easily located because of adherence to standards. It accommodates those who prefer to be alone and need to avoid distraction, but also has zones for those who want to meet with others and share ideas and debate.
So part of our role is SOCIAL – the other keyword of my title. Just as we use new technologies to improve our experience of the accommodation provider of the modern era, we see the added benefits of technologies applied to rating, reviewing, accessing and booking these services, though wotif, hotelclub etc. In the library world equivalents are social bookmarking, social collections, community contributed collections. One of the issues with the social element of our role is that our tools don't serve us at all well for this change. What is the key to the library? Who has the key to the library? How long since you had a new key? When was your OPAC designed? How has technology – particularly search technology changed in those 20 years?! Learning about social tools and their use is important for students, but learning about this in Web 1.0 style information literacy programmes is not particularly helpful. McCrindle’s (2007) research on attitudes of 21st century learners counsels that “rather than traditional structure, hierarchy, and control - they are looking for relating, mentoring and guidance.” If we accept that educational institutions have an obligation to help their students develop the skills they may need to work in this environment, then we must also accept the imperative that educational institutions will employ the tools and principles that underpin the read/write web. There is a potential disconnect between those who are teaching about user-generated content but are not themselves experiencing or modelling active contribution in online communities. Experience is the best way to learn about the online safety, identity management and digital footprint issues (Madden, 2007) which arise because the very personalisation which delivers the power of Web 2.0 requires users to publish information and opinion which would traditionally have had a much smaller, more controlled audience. Collaborative learning and publishing and online community building require new skills and plenty of practice in goal setting, sharing, considering viewpoints, negotiation and responsible citizenship. There are benefits for teachers and students in developing such skills, and teachers who have gone down this path highlight the power of writing for a real audience, of the reputation building that happens as those with special skills and interests can connect with a wider community of learners and of the self-esteem boost for writers, bloggers and media producers when others comment favourably on their work.
How many internet-enabled phones in this room? Smartphones, iPhone, Blackberry How many students have internet-enabled phones? German estimate = 80% of Year 9s. Kerrie Smith’s preliminary results: 53% of 10-11 year olds claimed ownership of a mobile phone – not necessarily internet enabled What we use it for? Phone calls, texting questions/answers, facebook, twitter, searching, getting directions/maps, email, movie reviews iPod touch trials in many Australian schools So when every child in a class has this capacity what difference will it make to learning? Can your Learning Management System/OPAC be searched? Can reserves be placed? Can you message students about resources available for them? Can they ask questions via mobile or facebook chat? Can they book resources? Your time? Can you send a quick survey to all teachers asking what themes they are doing in Term 3? How many smart devices have barcode reading capability? RFID tags? What will circulation look like? Most innovation starts by using the new technology to do the same tasks slightly differently?
SOCIAL is the second element of Web 2.0 philosophy and practice which I was to address User-generated content recognises that contribution from the community builds authenticity, creativity and innovation and raises issues of digital archiving, personalisation and point of view. Social bookmarking invites users into the process of collecting and helps them develop concepts and practices around collaboration, collective intelligence (O’Reilly, 2006) and social tagging. This represents a starting point for library staff seeking to optimise the learning potential of the read/write web.
Flickr, YouTube etc also demonstrate that the creator of the content will be inclined to add metadata (catalogue record) if you make it easy enough. And LibraryThing demonstrates that people will improve that metadata if you make it easy enough We are smarter than me
The library provides an amazing array of material but the only people who seem to be able to find anything they want are the library staff. The searching system that is available for the public sucks. How much are you paying for that thing? All it does is provide a location in your library and even then I have to go and find a paper map or ask at the desk where that location is. Users expect to click straight through a la Google maps – what about shelf view. I go to Amazon or IMDB to get some actual information – even Wikipedia has more interesting stuff about a book than the catalogue – what do I care about the size of the book? Use 21st century standards designed for web world, not for catalogue cards Get rid of this and join with other libraries online to make something useful for patrons, Get them engaged, get them contributing to your catalogue via the web. Library of Congress report says “Library users will continue to bypass catalogs in favor of search engines. Some studies have found that over three-quarters of library users start with a search engine and not the online catalog” http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf So you really can’t justify expensive stand-alone system for each library. There is too much duplication, redundant wasted, repetitive effort. Put effort into crosswalks not starting again from scratch. SHARE! It's all too fussy, and library staff are so hung up about perfect metadata – most of which is never used. In Web 2.0 world everyone accepts and expects works in progress. Integrate with Libraries Australia, WorldCat, LibraryThing, Google, Amazon, IMDB, Wikipedia Integrate with Learning Management system/repository We don’t yet know what the optimum resource discovery infrastructure of the future will be, but we can start trialling options and investigating what works. Some things can be predicted from current user behaviour. If the librarian impedes the connection then a disservice has been done. If however, the librarian facilitates the connection, then a value-added service has occurred.
Partnerships are essential – with each others, other libraries, and education/university libraries, the State Library of Victoria, with state services like FUSE and Ultranet, with national services like SCIS and Education Network Australia (edna), with national and international libraries. Demonstrate the power of SOCIAL and SEMANTIC WEB – another whole presentation, but basically keep in mind the importance of standards and of your data. Systems, hardware, software will come and go, but the content that these things are designed to manage needs to continue – continues to have value beyond its container. Because car designers and petrol distributors met and agreed to implement a common standard, we can pull up to any Australian petrol station in any Australian car and fit the nozzle for the correct type of fuel into our tank. Because library automation system designers and library cataloguers met and agreed to implement a common standard (MARC) we can move our catalogue records between most library systems. We have to maintain the pressure for every new technology used in schools to include us, the users and managers, in those conversations for the benefit of students. Does education/should education constantly make its own standards? Should we rather adopt the international standards that evolve for software – the world is moving too fast to have our own? BEWARE OF LOCK IN
Using OPACS designed 25 years ago in the first wave of library automation, is like using a crank to start the car long after everyone else is using self-ignition engines. Yes the OPAC is still working but the functionality that people expect 25 years later is not there. Are vendors are holding back – no imperative to implement until clients demand it? Are library staff holding back because it involves asking for money, or are we too used to accepting technology as given rather than designing/specifying what our users need. Don’t let people just sell us solutions to the easy problems. Tackle the hard questions. Find out where the pain points are for our users. If we are going to develop successful learning infrastructures our systems and processes have to be quicker, easier, richer, more personal, more user-friendly than the alternatives DISCUSSION: OPAC REDESIGN OK – we are going to publish our manifesto for the 21st century OPAC. So what should a 21st century OPAC do/look like? List design and functionality criteria for OPAC (not circulation, cataloguing etc just the public interface. Other functionality should be dependent on the needs of OPAC) Design a rubric – usability, ease of access, mobile delivery, speed, plain English, accessibility, remote access DEMONSTRATION: OPAC USABILITY Demonstrate the negative user experience of OPAC Strategy 1 Visit the school library on spec Go to library (find opening hours) - find Library OPAC terminal –(why do we call it Online Public Access Catalogue when so many of them are not actually online, as in on the web) – Perhaps Offline Public Access catalogue, or Ordinary Public access Catalogue? Go to OPAC, find out what term to use to find dictionaries (because no-one owns print dictionary any more except library) Work out search term to find dictionary – is keyword too broad, too slow, what is relevance of results? Is subject too narrow? Will someone give me a reference from <dictionary> to English language – Dictionaries? OCLC does SCIS – nice link to Google books Is the location in plain English? Do I know where reference shelves are? Can I remember the Call number (do I even know that it is the call number I need – ISBN makes more sense to non-English speakers) – we don’t ‘call’ for resources from storage these days. Can I export this to my mobile phone or do I have to type it in, or write it on my hand – because if the TL sees my mobile it will be confiscated. Strategy 2 Check the library catalogue from home In fact I’m not even going to bother going to the library if they don’t have what I want. I’ll get smart and check first College OPAC 1- computer frozen when doing search College OPAC 2 – same 2 non-helpful items Go to a search engine to find school website (check how many of your teachers and students don’t believe in typing urls) – find link to the library –find link on library page(s) amongst all the stuff about how great the library is, and all the things the library has and wants you to know about – know that the search thing is called a catalogue, or perhaps that weird term OPAC. Does the hitting enter activate the search, or do you have to click the search button Please wait….. give up An activity that served two purposes…. To indicate that the concept of library catalogue is pretty outdated To indicate that the tools we offer our users are timewasters
There are many tools and services that can assist students, teachers and library staff to share and be creative in new ways. Implementing some form of social bookmarking that aggregates user-generated interest indicators such as ratings, bookmarks and tags is an excellent starting point, and one that can quickly provide diversity of viewpoints and formats compared to traditional collections.