I found another article that connected some of my earlier readings surprisingly explicitly. In this article, again written by William Badke, some of the interesting info literacy categories from the end of the summit report from my earlier post were explored, namely "media literacy" and ICT (information and communication technology) literacy are explored. He explores each concept, media literacy being an ability to find, process, and vet info from media sources, and ICT literacy being an aptitude in using info technology like computers or, more and more importantly, hand-held internet capable devices. In doing so he suggests something interesting, that since these two are so obviously important and ubiquitous in our lives, each might be a good sort of "envelope" for pushing info literacy education in school and/or university curriculums. While the concept of "information literacy" itself is somewhat vague and not strongly a part of the national lexicon, the sub categories of media and ICT literacy are easy to understand, easy to see the use in, and something we all are forced to work on daily. Badke doesn't feel that either media or ICT literacy alone can constitute a good envelope to push "info literacy" since each is a bit too narrow to include or clearly connect to information literacy in a broader sense. However, he suggests that a combination of the two is a good start or focus to design and advertise information literacy education. I tend to agree, and in general feel its a good idea to break down the concept of "information literacy" into smaller, more discreet and explicit chunks to make it more viable and attractive as something to be systematically taught.
Article Citation:
William Badke, "Media, ICT, and Information Literacy" TecTrends September 20, 2009
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
"Information Overload? Maybe Not."
The contrarian title of this article caught me. As did this opening paragraph:
"Here's a common observance, popular with librarians and in the mainstream media: We're drowning in information. The biggest problem we have is silting through all that data flying at us. I wondered if it's just information professionals who worry about this, so I polled 13 undergraduate students to get their views. Their response? Blank stares. They simply did not know what I was talking about."
The author, an associate librarian at Trinity Western University, looks at the information literacy/overload problem from the (I feel rather accurate) perspective that our youth doesn't really see a pressing problem, and have developed their own habits (how good these habits are is up for debate) of dealing with it.
To summarize, he gives three options. The first is to give up on teaching information literacy. It's been minimally effective, expensive, and there's reason to believe that interfaces for search will become better, smarter, and simpler, and "recommendation" services like netflix and amazon will get better and better. Of course, there will still never be a good "star rating" for most info, so we can't really do this, he says. I agree.
Another option is to "cover the basics," something libraries and schools are doing now, because they don't have the resources to do more. This covers "one-shot" programs and talks, like the kind I was exposed to growing up. But, he argues, info literacy is like learning a language, and takes years to master. One-shot classes just aren't enough. I would agree that they aren't enough. On the other hand, if we take such a long and broad view of info literacy (and saying it takes years to learn definitely is broad, I would also suggest its a lifelong process) almost puts it in the realm of a sort of professional degree! I think it should be stressed during other classes--every basic class at least from a middle school level has a strong use for info literacy--but it will be a challenge to keep a distinct focus apart from the aims of any given course (teaching kids science, for example is hard enough.)
The last and ultimate option, of course, is to "make it foundational." Establish it as a new foundational subject, and start them young. The strongest case for this goes back to the old complaint of students, "when am I ever going to use this?" Well, you would think info literacy would be an easy sell to add to curriculum as its exceedingly easy to answer that question, and its undoubtedly useful. I would argue that the reason it will be difficult to establish (aside from the fact that it is a painful subject to learn--breaking bad habits and all) is that there is no AP info literacy test, it isn't explicitly on achievement tests, it isn't a well-known college major: it's not part of the academic system. And the academic system isn't really set up to teach people what they need in many ways, its set up to judge "achievement" and sort people out. I may be being a bit cyncial, but until "info literacy" can gain traction as one of the subjects Universities and standardized tests can or do measure, it may be difficult to get it as foundational as it really needs to be. What do you think?
Article citation:
Badke, William. "Information overload? Maybe not." Online 34.5 (2010): 52+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 30 Jan. 2011.
"Here's a common observance, popular with librarians and in the mainstream media: We're drowning in information. The biggest problem we have is silting through all that data flying at us. I wondered if it's just information professionals who worry about this, so I polled 13 undergraduate students to get their views. Their response? Blank stares. They simply did not know what I was talking about."
The author, an associate librarian at Trinity Western University, looks at the information literacy/overload problem from the (I feel rather accurate) perspective that our youth doesn't really see a pressing problem, and have developed their own habits (how good these habits are is up for debate) of dealing with it.
To summarize, he gives three options. The first is to give up on teaching information literacy. It's been minimally effective, expensive, and there's reason to believe that interfaces for search will become better, smarter, and simpler, and "recommendation" services like netflix and amazon will get better and better. Of course, there will still never be a good "star rating" for most info, so we can't really do this, he says. I agree.
Another option is to "cover the basics," something libraries and schools are doing now, because they don't have the resources to do more. This covers "one-shot" programs and talks, like the kind I was exposed to growing up. But, he argues, info literacy is like learning a language, and takes years to master. One-shot classes just aren't enough. I would agree that they aren't enough. On the other hand, if we take such a long and broad view of info literacy (and saying it takes years to learn definitely is broad, I would also suggest its a lifelong process) almost puts it in the realm of a sort of professional degree! I think it should be stressed during other classes--every basic class at least from a middle school level has a strong use for info literacy--but it will be a challenge to keep a distinct focus apart from the aims of any given course (teaching kids science, for example is hard enough.)
The last and ultimate option, of course, is to "make it foundational." Establish it as a new foundational subject, and start them young. The strongest case for this goes back to the old complaint of students, "when am I ever going to use this?" Well, you would think info literacy would be an easy sell to add to curriculum as its exceedingly easy to answer that question, and its undoubtedly useful. I would argue that the reason it will be difficult to establish (aside from the fact that it is a painful subject to learn--breaking bad habits and all) is that there is no AP info literacy test, it isn't explicitly on achievement tests, it isn't a well-known college major: it's not part of the academic system. And the academic system isn't really set up to teach people what they need in many ways, its set up to judge "achievement" and sort people out. I may be being a bit cyncial, but until "info literacy" can gain traction as one of the subjects Universities and standardized tests can or do measure, it may be difficult to get it as foundational as it really needs to be. What do you think?
Article citation:
Badke, William. "Information overload? Maybe not." Online 34.5 (2010): 52+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 30 Jan. 2011.
NATIONAL INFORMATION LITERACY SUMMIT: AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS IN THE INFORMATION AGE, 2007
I won't talk too much about this report from the "National Information Literacy Summit" in late 2006, largely because, like many such summit reports, the bulk is spent advocating the topic of discussion in relatively vague terms, rather than drawing specific conclusions or recommendations that I find really urgent. Two of the key points for example are that "information literacy is crucial to the competitive advantage of individuals, enterprises, regions, and nations (surprise!) and that "a team of experts should develop national standards for information literacy". Following the fact that information literacy is important, schools and hopefully the business community should take steps to promote it.
True as this all is, I'm always slightly disappointed when reports such as this conclude with a lot of not-so-surprising "that" realizations, and maybe some "why"s, but not so many "hows". When it comes to one of the summit's stated goals, to "raise awareness among policy makers and the media about the importance of an information-literary society in the 21st schedules, I'm personally drawn more by media mentions like President Obama's in 2009. But rather than poo-poo the article, I did find one extremely interesting outcome from the end of the report. That is, a definition of what precisely is meant by information literacy, with surprising and interesting aspects.
If you look at the end of the report, info literacy is broken into categories, including some obvious ones like good-old-fashioned literacy and technology literacy. Some more interesting ones that I don't always think about and could probably brush up on myself include "economic and financial" literacy, "health" literacy, and "multicultural" literacy. Doing things specifically to help people become more knowledge about finances, health concerns, and multiculturalism are all exciting things that I'd love to do in my career, that don't quite seem to show up explicitly in everyday library service as I know it at work. I'd be interested to hear in the future of library programs and themes, especially in public libraries, promoting info literacy in those areas.
True as this all is, I'm always slightly disappointed when reports such as this conclude with a lot of not-so-surprising "that" realizations, and maybe some "why"s, but not so many "hows". When it comes to one of the summit's stated goals, to "raise awareness among policy makers and the media about the importance of an information-literary society in the 21st schedules, I'm personally drawn more by media mentions like President Obama's in 2009. But rather than poo-poo the article, I did find one extremely interesting outcome from the end of the report. That is, a definition of what precisely is meant by information literacy, with surprising and interesting aspects.
If you look at the end of the report, info literacy is broken into categories, including some obvious ones like good-old-fashioned literacy and technology literacy. Some more interesting ones that I don't always think about and could probably brush up on myself include "economic and financial" literacy, "health" literacy, and "multicultural" literacy. Doing things specifically to help people become more knowledge about finances, health concerns, and multiculturalism are all exciting things that I'd love to do in my career, that don't quite seem to show up explicitly in everyday library service as I know it at work. I'd be interested to hear in the future of library programs and themes, especially in public libraries, promoting info literacy in those areas.
OCLC's "Pereception of Libraries 2010" Report
OCLC released it's annual "Perception of Libraries" report recently. I love these because they give all sorts of insightful graphics about public perceptions of libraries in easy to absorb graphics. I wish more academic literature was more like this! As with any publication or article about "the state of libraries" the trends and percentages all have to be taken with a grain of salt--lost are nuances like what type of libraries exhibit which trends more or less strongly, and how regions affect perception. Still, I thought there were some interesting take-aways. Some highlights are:
-7 out of 10 public libraries report that they are the only source of free internet for their communities.
I know traditionally we all like to think of libraries as necessary for literacy in the traditional sense--giving people access to things to read--but this is astounding and highlights how libraries are crucial to promoting internet literacy (through access) in addition to "computer literacy." This is interesting for someone like me who works at a public library because, at least at my library, we aren't encouraged to sit down with patrons who don't know what they're doing on the internet to walk them through everything they need to know. Obviously this isn't part of the job description, and I definitely like that. Still it highlights how important web classes are, and how librarians might be asked to provide more and more one on one or small group web-use education services in the future.
-In total about 33% of Americans have ever used their library's web site, compared to 68% who have a library card.
It's astounding to me that less than half of people with library cards have ever used their library's website, though I suppose I'm used to libraries that have pretty robust ones. Not all do. This definitely needs to/will increase, and motivates me even more to graduate with technical skills to help build and design sites and think about what communities need to be put in touch with online. I guess taking graphic design was a good idea! Too bad I missed out on design of complex websites.
-7 out of 10 public libraries report that they are the only source of free internet for their communities.
I know traditionally we all like to think of libraries as necessary for literacy in the traditional sense--giving people access to things to read--but this is astounding and highlights how libraries are crucial to promoting internet literacy (through access) in addition to "computer literacy." This is interesting for someone like me who works at a public library because, at least at my library, we aren't encouraged to sit down with patrons who don't know what they're doing on the internet to walk them through everything they need to know. Obviously this isn't part of the job description, and I definitely like that. Still it highlights how important web classes are, and how librarians might be asked to provide more and more one on one or small group web-use education services in the future.
-In total about 33% of Americans have ever used their library's web site, compared to 68% who have a library card.
It's astounding to me that less than half of people with library cards have ever used their library's website, though I suppose I'm used to libraries that have pretty robust ones. Not all do. This definitely needs to/will increase, and motivates me even more to graduate with technical skills to help build and design sites and think about what communities need to be put in touch with online. I guess taking graphic design was a good idea! Too bad I missed out on design of complex websites.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Veldof and "Creating the Workshop"
Starting out this article was a bit funny for me, as it seems to speak to experienced librarians who have been doing workshops--somewhat wrongly--for years and need to get out of old bad habits to create new ones. As an LIS student in a rather cutting edge SI school, it's always odd to read literature that seems to be intended for an audience with old conceptions, rather than a fairly blank slate such as myself. On the other hand, it's relevant to me as someone who as been exposed to and works with a library that offers a lot of 1 hour or so workshops, which I always felt were in some ways designed to teach people just enough of what students need for a foundation, allowing them to pursue more advanced questions with the knowledge they got from the workshop and to get in contact with the instructor on further questions.
In a nutshell, the introduction stresses the importance of planning, with a lovable acronym for the process suggested by this book. It's actually very simple in a way--perhaps in part because I've been cultured to follow similar processes throughout my education regarding all sorts of projects beyond educational projects, and in part because any overview like ADDIE doesn't necessarily betray the complexities and hard work that go into each step. But the fact that one should analyze (conduct some sort of user study to figure out what should be done) design (formalize the objectives and perameters of the workshop) develop (create the content) implement (do the workshop) and evaluate (consider the project and how it can be made better with help from user input) is on some level extremely intuitive and simple.
Of the reasons given to go through planning like an ADDIE process, I think "plug and play" and "consistency" are most important and interesting. Having a structured process saves a lot of time in allowing one to take out one piece of a workshop and replace it with another, or follow a basic layout for different topics. Design should make future workshops quicker and easier, it should allow us not to need to reinvent the wheel for every lesson. Related to that is consistency, which is important for teachers with lots of different classes and things to teach, and difficult to achieve.
With regard to the mixes suggested for building teams for workshop creation, I'm very much in agreement with all of the considerations, but tempered on needing a "mix of personality types." Especially in small groups of say 4 or less, conflicting pesonalities can be good to make sure things are well rounded and balanced, but they can also restrict progress in a given direction that may be very fruitful. In general I think that in group work balance is great, but compromise is not necessarily great, since in education creativity and innovation can be extremely effective, and conflicting personalities can stifle that in favor of compromise. Not to say conflicting personalities are bad, just that in some groups, especially small ones, one might not always need to go so far as make sure vastly different personalities are present, and might even consider in what way a group of like-behaving individuals could work with more synergy.
As I know this course will cover a great deal of group work on creating educational tools and teaching plans, I think it will be interesting to try the guidelines set out in the remainder of the introduction to see what is most effective and what might be a bit more formal than needed.
In a nutshell, the introduction stresses the importance of planning, with a lovable acronym for the process suggested by this book. It's actually very simple in a way--perhaps in part because I've been cultured to follow similar processes throughout my education regarding all sorts of projects beyond educational projects, and in part because any overview like ADDIE doesn't necessarily betray the complexities and hard work that go into each step. But the fact that one should analyze (conduct some sort of user study to figure out what should be done) design (formalize the objectives and perameters of the workshop) develop (create the content) implement (do the workshop) and evaluate (consider the project and how it can be made better with help from user input) is on some level extremely intuitive and simple.
Of the reasons given to go through planning like an ADDIE process, I think "plug and play" and "consistency" are most important and interesting. Having a structured process saves a lot of time in allowing one to take out one piece of a workshop and replace it with another, or follow a basic layout for different topics. Design should make future workshops quicker and easier, it should allow us not to need to reinvent the wheel for every lesson. Related to that is consistency, which is important for teachers with lots of different classes and things to teach, and difficult to achieve.
With regard to the mixes suggested for building teams for workshop creation, I'm very much in agreement with all of the considerations, but tempered on needing a "mix of personality types." Especially in small groups of say 4 or less, conflicting pesonalities can be good to make sure things are well rounded and balanced, but they can also restrict progress in a given direction that may be very fruitful. In general I think that in group work balance is great, but compromise is not necessarily great, since in education creativity and innovation can be extremely effective, and conflicting personalities can stifle that in favor of compromise. Not to say conflicting personalities are bad, just that in some groups, especially small ones, one might not always need to go so far as make sure vastly different personalities are present, and might even consider in what way a group of like-behaving individuals could work with more synergy.
As I know this course will cover a great deal of group work on creating educational tools and teaching plans, I think it will be interesting to try the guidelines set out in the remainder of the introduction to see what is most effective and what might be a bit more formal than needed.
Johnston and Information Literacy
This article was the toughest of this week for me to appreciate since I never felt very aware of what exactly the module used consisted of and how exactly it was used. Obviously the study's aim is to explore broader questions like the strengths and weaknesses of online vs in-person training and the importance and possiblity of teaching information literacy, but because the conclusions drawn were from this one specific module, it was difficult for me to feel very strongly about any given finding. The beginning of the article is something of an overview of the research field this article falls in, almost a bit of meta-research. Not being in this field as an academic per se (that is, not doing research or expecting to do research not directly impacting post-academic professional skills I hope to acquire) I was a bit lost with the specific references, essentially coming away with the idea that two main dichotomies being researched are generic vs specfic education and online vs in person, with the jury being out on whether face to face or online educational resources might be better.
On that note, the article suggests near the end that as some students seemed to prefer face-to-face and others preferred online learning environments, ideally both should be used. Theoretically, this would allow everyone to get what they want, with the weaknesses of each approach cancelled out by the strengths of the other. However, it isn't so clear how implementable this would actually be--dedicating resources to both approaches and making each work together compatibly is undoubtedly not a simple thing to do. Also, logistics dictate that certain groups, like the distance learners, would not be able to make use of face-to-face instruction anyway, meaning that not all students in the same course would get the same opportunity. It's interesting to think about: many online degree programs or courses seem to be expressly that, not "online optional." I wonder if this reflects the challenges of supporting and melding both face-to-face and online teaching options.
Regarding the surveys, I felt the sample size (25) was a bit small to be terribly compelling. I would also like to know more about the options of "strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral..." and so on tend to be so popular in surveys like this, including most UM course surveys. I for one think the concept of "strongly agreeing" is highly subjective at best, and often have an extremely difficult time deciding whether I strongly or somewhat agree with various items. Often, even though I definitely agree, I am somewhat less than fervent about my opinion, so I opt for "somewhat agree" just because the question is about an item or aspect I find less than fascinating. I also wonder for the question "is info literacy important" how clear a concept of "information literacy" students had. "Information literacy" is a somewhat recently popularized term by information scientists and people who study it and have a clear conception of what precisely it means. Depending on how strong survey respondents' conception of the term is, and even more importantly whether they have a similar conception is important. If people don't know or agree on exactly what "information literacy" means, its difficult to take anything concrete away from their opinion about it.
On that note, the article suggests near the end that as some students seemed to prefer face-to-face and others preferred online learning environments, ideally both should be used. Theoretically, this would allow everyone to get what they want, with the weaknesses of each approach cancelled out by the strengths of the other. However, it isn't so clear how implementable this would actually be--dedicating resources to both approaches and making each work together compatibly is undoubtedly not a simple thing to do. Also, logistics dictate that certain groups, like the distance learners, would not be able to make use of face-to-face instruction anyway, meaning that not all students in the same course would get the same opportunity. It's interesting to think about: many online degree programs or courses seem to be expressly that, not "online optional." I wonder if this reflects the challenges of supporting and melding both face-to-face and online teaching options.
Regarding the surveys, I felt the sample size (25) was a bit small to be terribly compelling. I would also like to know more about the options of "strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral..." and so on tend to be so popular in surveys like this, including most UM course surveys. I for one think the concept of "strongly agreeing" is highly subjective at best, and often have an extremely difficult time deciding whether I strongly or somewhat agree with various items. Often, even though I definitely agree, I am somewhat less than fervent about my opinion, so I opt for "somewhat agree" just because the question is about an item or aspect I find less than fascinating. I also wonder for the question "is info literacy important" how clear a concept of "information literacy" students had. "Information literacy" is a somewhat recently popularized term by information scientists and people who study it and have a clear conception of what precisely it means. Depending on how strong survey respondents' conception of the term is, and even more importantly whether they have a similar conception is important. If people don't know or agree on exactly what "information literacy" means, its difficult to take anything concrete away from their opinion about it.
Captivate Menubuilder
The report on using Captivate and Menubuilder to create a tutorial for use of SCCS was interesting because it resembled the result of assignments I can very much see as being common to this class. Aside from being an example of a pretty good explanation and summary of the creation of an online teaching tool for a graduate course (I assume this may have been a sort of HCI or Education program?) I had a few takeaways.
When conducting early user surveys to determine user needs, it was interesting that parents as well as students were taken into account. Obviously, as it turned out parents did a lot to help with their students' use of SCCS and would want to know how to navigate it themselves to check on their kids' work, it made sense to consider both groups. However, both groups will clearly have different perspectives and assumptions, due to having slightly different motivations for using the site (directly doing work vs. facilitating or reviewing work) and an obvious age gap. The reflects a huge challenge in creating educational tools like this: it's impossible to be all things to all people, but one still has to try and determine what the largest group needs and wants are in order to find some sort of balance. For some extremely specialized topics or resources with very narrow user communities, this might not be so bad. But trying to design a tutorial for, say, a web catalog that's used by ages 4 to 104 for myriad different reasons should undoubtedly be trickier.
Something that wasn't mentioned in the article was the possibility that the tutorial created would need to be changed or replaced as SCCS layout and functionalities evolve. A challenge to creating learning materials is that they can be extremely time-intensive as they need to be updated or completely replaced as what they teach about changes. This highlights the extreme importance of having good, sustainable design from the get-go for online resources, where basic services are not likely to change, though add-ons or enhancements are possible.
I also found it rang very true that the group found module time needs to be kept short, even shorter than expected. I personally find myself being very frustrated when listening to video/audio tutorials and needing to wait to get the info I need. This is one drawback when compared to text: text tutorials are generally easy to scan and skip to get exactly what you need. I wonder if in the future screen casts will come with some sort of timestamped transcript or table of contents, making them more or less as skimmable as text. I'd be interested to see if this is the direction things go.
When conducting early user surveys to determine user needs, it was interesting that parents as well as students were taken into account. Obviously, as it turned out parents did a lot to help with their students' use of SCCS and would want to know how to navigate it themselves to check on their kids' work, it made sense to consider both groups. However, both groups will clearly have different perspectives and assumptions, due to having slightly different motivations for using the site (directly doing work vs. facilitating or reviewing work) and an obvious age gap. The reflects a huge challenge in creating educational tools like this: it's impossible to be all things to all people, but one still has to try and determine what the largest group needs and wants are in order to find some sort of balance. For some extremely specialized topics or resources with very narrow user communities, this might not be so bad. But trying to design a tutorial for, say, a web catalog that's used by ages 4 to 104 for myriad different reasons should undoubtedly be trickier.
Something that wasn't mentioned in the article was the possibility that the tutorial created would need to be changed or replaced as SCCS layout and functionalities evolve. A challenge to creating learning materials is that they can be extremely time-intensive as they need to be updated or completely replaced as what they teach about changes. This highlights the extreme importance of having good, sustainable design from the get-go for online resources, where basic services are not likely to change, though add-ons or enhancements are possible.
I also found it rang very true that the group found module time needs to be kept short, even shorter than expected. I personally find myself being very frustrated when listening to video/audio tutorials and needing to wait to get the info I need. This is one drawback when compared to text: text tutorials are generally easy to scan and skip to get exactly what you need. I wonder if in the future screen casts will come with some sort of timestamped transcript or table of contents, making them more or less as skimmable as text. I'd be interested to see if this is the direction things go.
Open Source Resources
In a meeting with the IT director at the library I'm interning with, he stressed the importance of knowing about and staying abreast of open-source options for various library needs. I always try to take notice when coming across or hearing about new opensource educational or database resources, so articles like the Griffis article are always a great help.
What's frustrating sometimes about open source software is finding resourrces that are stable; that is, that stand to be supported by some community if not the original developer. It's always great to find an open source solution for technology and educational needs, but if one is constantly jumping from one resource to the next as old ones become obsolete or fall out of favor, it can be difficult to provide services with the software in a smooth, simple way. Even resources like Trailfire, mentioned in the article, can suddenly be superseded by something better, or become unavialable (when I went to the trailfire.com website on 1/23/11 at about 2:00pm, the site was either down or unresponsive.) The other frustrating thing about open source solutions is simply part of the nature of getting things for free: lots of free resources do one of a set of things you need, but not all. Even though each component might be possible using a set of different resources, due to copyright or lack of motivation its somewhat rare to find free software that can do everything you want at the same time (say, take screencasts and record/playback audio at the same time.) For this reason, I'm very convinced that its important to build strong technical skills, and be aware as possible of software resources and options, so as to make the most out of whats out there, and to be able to forsee and solve problems created by resources' limitations.
What's frustrating sometimes about open source software is finding resourrces that are stable; that is, that stand to be supported by some community if not the original developer. It's always great to find an open source solution for technology and educational needs, but if one is constantly jumping from one resource to the next as old ones become obsolete or fall out of favor, it can be difficult to provide services with the software in a smooth, simple way. Even resources like Trailfire, mentioned in the article, can suddenly be superseded by something better, or become unavialable (when I went to the trailfire.com website on 1/23/11 at about 2:00pm, the site was either down or unresponsive.) The other frustrating thing about open source solutions is simply part of the nature of getting things for free: lots of free resources do one of a set of things you need, but not all. Even though each component might be possible using a set of different resources, due to copyright or lack of motivation its somewhat rare to find free software that can do everything you want at the same time (say, take screencasts and record/playback audio at the same time.) For this reason, I'm very convinced that its important to build strong technical skills, and be aware as possible of software resources and options, so as to make the most out of whats out there, and to be able to forsee and solve problems created by resources' limitations.
Monday, January 10, 2011
ALA Competencies
I'll give an overview of my reaction from three sections from front to start for the ALA core competencies.
1) Foundations of the Profession
This is perhaps the most interesting section as it somewhat flies in the face of the addage that libraries are a fundamentally shifting field; that old ways (reference, cataloging, physical materials) are dying; that the old ways and old guard must be left behind if libraries are to be sustainable. On the other hand, it's not clear that the "ethics, values, and foundational principles" are what is changing. This seems to be the central issue at the heart of much library literature covered at SI! I would say that the skills of the "foundation of the profession": communication, analyzing complex problems, etc are as or more important than ever. Knowing the history of libraries and history of human communication is perhaps useful as far as it informs TODAY's library issues. Knowing current trends and issues, having a context to place any one library within is more important.
4) Technological Knowledge and Skills
Absolutely! While an item like 4C, "The methods of assessing and evaluating the specifications, efficacy, and cost efficiency of technology-based products and services." may well fall under the jurisdiction of an IT department (I know this is somewhat rare in many public libraries), technology is one of the things I am asked about most at the library, by both patrons and colleagues. While tech experts as we now know them are a somewhat new thing in society and seem to be seen as an isolated bunch, librarians can be a huge public help in offering education on technical skills, even basic computer literacy. This seems to be the most demanded educational content at AADL, my place of work.
8) Administration and Management
This is extremely interesting to me especially with respect to this course as there do seem to be administrative job openings out there, and all require experience, not just competency in this area. It's possible to take courses on items like "human resources development", "budgeting (outside of collections" or "developing partnerships" but perhaps this is something that truly needs to be hashed out on the job (you can't quite do a project for a client where you truly have responsibility for these things.) Gaining these competencies is something I'm interested in and is perhaps best gotten in high-demand, (relatively) demanding situations.
1) Foundations of the Profession
This is perhaps the most interesting section as it somewhat flies in the face of the addage that libraries are a fundamentally shifting field; that old ways (reference, cataloging, physical materials) are dying; that the old ways and old guard must be left behind if libraries are to be sustainable. On the other hand, it's not clear that the "ethics, values, and foundational principles" are what is changing. This seems to be the central issue at the heart of much library literature covered at SI! I would say that the skills of the "foundation of the profession": communication, analyzing complex problems, etc are as or more important than ever. Knowing the history of libraries and history of human communication is perhaps useful as far as it informs TODAY's library issues. Knowing current trends and issues, having a context to place any one library within is more important.
4) Technological Knowledge and Skills
Absolutely! While an item like 4C, "The methods of assessing and evaluating the specifications, efficacy, and cost efficiency of technology-based products and services." may well fall under the jurisdiction of an IT department (I know this is somewhat rare in many public libraries), technology is one of the things I am asked about most at the library, by both patrons and colleagues. While tech experts as we now know them are a somewhat new thing in society and seem to be seen as an isolated bunch, librarians can be a huge public help in offering education on technical skills, even basic computer literacy. This seems to be the most demanded educational content at AADL, my place of work.
8) Administration and Management
This is extremely interesting to me especially with respect to this course as there do seem to be administrative job openings out there, and all require experience, not just competency in this area. It's possible to take courses on items like "human resources development", "budgeting (outside of collections" or "developing partnerships" but perhaps this is something that truly needs to be hashed out on the job (you can't quite do a project for a client where you truly have responsibility for these things.) Gaining these competencies is something I'm interested in and is perhaps best gotten in high-demand, (relatively) demanding situations.
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