Inside the locked room, part 1 – #ALAMW12

As reported last April, I’m serving on YALSA’s Excellence in Non-fiction for Young Adults committee. My term started November 1, 2011 and will end in January 2013 when we make those exciting phone calls – and in between there’ll be much discussion and reading. Liz Burns, on the outgoing committee, explains our charge and the process better than I possibly can.

So why this post? Because there’s a lot of mystery about the whole “locked room committee” thing. I’m here to give you a peek behind that door.

First of all, this time we didn’t meet in a locked room. As a matter of fact, the room didn’t lock and had a sliding glass wall out to the hotel’s atrium (where one could watch the Patriots/Ravens game – so glad that ended well! – bowl, eat and drink). If you’re good at lip-reading, this would have been a perfect spying opportunity. There was no bathroom,food or drink provided, but most of us either brought food with us (we started at 1:30) or suffered.

Our first meeting was mostly “housekeeping”: introductions (I’m the only school librarian on the committee), checking our addresses so that publishers can start to send us books, talking about the criteria and how we should structure our conversations (positives first, then negatives). A few titles were mentioned, and our intrepid Chair, Angela, gets to take on the task of contacting the publishers to ask they send the books to us. We also talked about fact-checking, which doesn’t mean that we’re doing the work the editorial staff should have done in real depth, but if the work is (to our knowledge) leaving out important information, that’s something to consider.

Because this is one of the few committees whose nominations are made public (to serve as a collection development tool) we have a lot of responsibility. To be honest, it’s a little scary. Now, that list isn’t our shortlist, it’s just all the books we thought worthy of serious consideration. The shortlist will be drawn from that list, ditto the eventual winner. And a book I love love love and nominate may ultimately be trashed by the rest of the committee. The fact that e-readers show books differently, that pictures may (or may not) be laid out the same in digital format, if they’re even truly visible, means that before nominating we have to check the print version.

Between now and Annual we’ll be reading, discussing and taking notes. Then we’ll meet, again in a possibly locked room, and talk about our favorites at that point.

Stay tuned.

2011 Round-up, part two

This year was filled with highlights and a few lowlights – but why dwell on the latter? The most important thing for me this year was learning with, and from, my friends, peers and colleagues. Some are librarians, some administrators, others teachers or “civilians”: my professional life has been made richer by knowing them. Note that I’m not using the overused acronym PLN or PLE, because I think a less jargon-filled world is a good thing.

#AASL11 Reflections: HS – College Information Literacy

First of all, this wasn’t really about the entire continuum, it was more about the 12-13 disconnect. In other words, what we HS librarians think our students leave knowing, and what first year professors actually see when our students get there. The caveats of the study are that the students were from Catholic schools that essentially fed into the University of St. Thomas – I would love to see this replicated in other combinations (eg, independent schools to their top 20 acceptances or top state universities and the top high schools in their states).

The UST study found some differences from Megan Oakleaf/Patricia Owen’s research (see their article on TL). They approached it from the viewpoint of “what expectations should UST librarians have regarding the info lit skills of incoming freshmen”? (vs. the what do colleges expect = what HS wants to know approach) There has been much research into HS-College transition (the emotional issues, for example) but little empirical library research; there was a lot of introductory/trends/how I do it here/etc articles and presentations.

One practical suggestion was that students were lost when doing database research, as they’d come in looking for a product by provider/vendor name. Databases should never be arranged by vendors; they should be arranged A-Z or by subject, mimic academic libraries. This reiterates what I’ve heard at other presentations, when students get so comfortable with one database in high school that they don’t know there are others out there, or that the one they love may not be the most appropriate for their current research need.

The most interesting part was that UST looked at the comparison of HS librarians reporting to faculty reporting: we may think that we’re graduating information literate and skilled students, but their first year professors don’t see that. It was also interesting that for a large number of the faculty, the sense was that they could teach the appropriate skills in the classroom rather than bringing students (or sending them) to the library for instruction and assistance. I’ve seen this in high schools as well, from both “revered old timers” and “sweet young things” (and while some can teach the skills and guide students, often they really can’t or they don’t understand the school’s desired style and thus confuse students with competing expectations).

The ARCL standards were used, not AASL; I know there’s been a lot of work correlating AASL to NETS and AASL to Common Core, but how much work as there been on AASL to ACRL? I know one independent school that correlated NETS to ACRL, ignoring AASL completely. Radical thought? It might be really beneficial for HS librarians to ignore AASL’s standards and focus on ACRL’s as we prepare students for the next phase of their education.

Their research and presentation is online here (bibliography included). We were also advised to check out Megan Oakleaf’s work, Oakleaf’s work with Patricia Owen, and Head/Eisenberg’s Project Information Literacy.

#AASL11 reflections: technotreats

I’m always interested in how others are using technology (and technotools) intelligently in their schools – after all, we know that technology is only a tool, it’s not the answer to our pedagogical/programatic problems. Right? Here are some of my takeaways (and one rant) from the conference.

#AASL11 reflections: assessment/evaluation

Having worked in several NYSAIS evaluation committees (and written on the evaluation for accreditation process, I was interested in what my public school peers were doing vis-a-vis the NYS School Library Media Program Evaluation (SLMPE) Rubric. NYSAIS has recently updated its process and libraries aren’t mentioned (why? this is a huge mistake, imvho) and looking at this assessment piece reminded me that there’s little difference between independent and public school programs in terms of what we do – it’s funding, testing mandates and curriculum that changes. So in lieu of specific NAIS-sponsored assessments (although we do have the Guidelines of Professional Practice for Librarians), it would be a good idea to borrow from this as we self-assess/self-evaluate.

#AASL11 Reflections: overall impressions

Having the opportunity to spend time taking with peers, learning from them during formal presentations as well as in informal conversations is always wonderful, and the AASL conference certainly provides that opportunity. The focus on school libraries is something of a dual-edged sword, however. Why? Because when you’re in a walled garden you don’t get to see what your non-school-librarian peers are doing. I’ve learned so much from my public and academic library peers that could – and should – be shared with school librarians, but even at “Big ALA” that tends not to happen. Just my thought, obviously, but one we might want to consider going forward.

The Learning Commons had a great unconference focus, but maybe next time we include a tech playground (vendor free) and focus more on those not already presenting? I wish more newbies had the opportunity to go to the LC sessions as they were happening, to increase the conversation and the learning there.

Why weren’t they there? Because for the first time I can remember, each session I attended was full. People sitting on the floor, trailing out the doors full. And from what I’ve heard, this was the rule. So many congratulations to the committee for good session choices!

Minneapolis was also a wonderful venue: very walkable, friendly and warmer than my hometown! I don’t know how walkable Hartford CT will be, but after Charlotte (2009), Minneapolis was a great decision. The lack of need for the buses to and from the Convention Center was so nice and “green” (if only we could get rid of the program books, or make them an “opt in” feature!). And – gasp! – Starbucks wasn’t on every corner. Instead I got to have Caribou Coffee and Dunn Brothers. YAY for local chains!!

Finally, Dorcas sums it up better than I ever could:

AASL—Streaming and Teaming for Strong School Libraries | American Libraries Magazine via kwout

The Big (and not so) Easy: Missing Voices on the Student Transition to College

Ok, I get why there were no school librarians or academic librarians on this panel – apparently our voices have been heard.  But still, having representatives from those groups on this panel would have really added to the discussion.  According to a few people, school librarian membership in LIRT is negligible, so I encourage all my peers to go and add that $5 membership to their dues now!

So, who were the “missing voices”?  A public school teacher (PST), a public librarian (PL), a college freshman (CF) and a graduate student (GS) who teaches incoming freshmen writing.  Here’s what I got from their discussion:

A brief #ALA11 wrap-up

Yes, ALA11 ended over a week ago, but in my defense there have been a few things going on in my life that have delayed this post.

Before I actually headed to NOLA, things got exciting.  I was mugged – money removed from my wallet by this bandit:

Seriously, I was just walking down the block, heading home, and this was parked on the corner.  I was powerless to resist the lure of a frappe and a cupcake.  Watch out f people!  The next morning, I went to Mile End for breakfast – yummy.  And then my friend Angela and I headed to Terminal 5 at JFK for our flight south.

No sooner had I entered my hotel room than Wendy phoned asking about meeting for drinks before dinner, and if Stephen could join her, Amy and me for dinner. Of course I said yes, and quickly unpacked then ran to meet them at Napoleon House before heading to Bayona for dinner.  The next morning, before heading off to a Super Secret Focus Group, I met Wendy, Amy and Angela for breakfast:

What a great way to get ready for my first presentation on Disaster Preparation for School Librarians (slides here; the video should be on-line at some point).  Then it was off to the event Amy refers to as “the running of the bulls”.  Well, this bull is getting old, and only managed 36 ARCs in 15-ish minutes.  Still, the overall haul from ALA was 53 books:

Then it was back to the hotel and out to Mother’s for dinner with Francey, Amy, Wendy and Deb. Later that night I had my tarot read by Phil, thanks to the folks at Little, Brown during their Smoke and Bone party at   (the ARC is rapidly coming up on my TBR pile)… after which I went “home” and to bed.

Saturday brought my next presentation, To E or Not to E, part of the From Gutenberg to Glogs presentation (with Wendy, Angela and Carla – slides here), then sessions.  More sessions on Sunday, followed by the ISS gathering where I met Kate (with whom I’ll be serving on the YALSA Publications Advisory Board) and Lisa.

Monday, my last day, was also my last presentation, this time on Best Practices for Library Websites for Teens (with Francey and Jody – LiveBinder here).  I then raced back to the hotel to check out and the incredible receptionist suggested that I mail my books home from the UPS Store nearby, rather than dragging everything back to the convention center (the UPS people were amazingly helpful and they gave me a AAA discount!).  Back at the convention center, I attended one last session before heading to the airport with Patty.

Session round-ups and thoughts coming soon – I promise!

College Bound Students and Independent School Libraries (part two)

After John Palfrey’s keynote, we then had a panel discussion with Beth Rohloff of Tufts, Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah of Boston College, and Susan Gilroy of Harvard University.  These are three of the people my former students will meet in September, and their insights into what those incoming students will experience and be asked to do was invaluable.

College Bound Students and Independent School Libraries (part one)

(also known as “what I need to keep my eyes on as I work with students”)

This was an interesting one-off “conference”, organized by the wonderful librarians at BB&N in Boston and presented at my mother’s graduate school alma mater, the Harvard Graduate School of Education (although she wouldn’t recognize the library we met in!).  What attracted me is that while most independent schools do a lot of thinking about what a graduate of [school name] should know in terms of the major academic subjects, and some schools think about the skills needed in addition to the curricular scope and sequence, not as many think about these things from the other side: what do colleges need for our students to know?  What skills do they expect them to have?  This panel was a good opportunity to see what my recently graduated seniors will find in September when they meet their new librarians, professors and expectations.

First up was John Palfrey, author of Born Digital.  He’s the one that coined the phrase “digital natives”, a phrase that has bugged me no end; imagine how pleased I was to hear him recent that, slightly.  But more on that later.  Here are his main points: