Blessing or Curse?

Several years ago Doug mentioned that he did most of his reading on his Kindle (he still does whether it’s on an actual Kindle or the app on another device) and that one of the blessings was the ability to quickly search for information while reading.  Back in the “good old days” you had to remember what you were interested in, or confused about, and then look it up rather than quickly go to your browser and – voila! – answers.

My Kindle is rarely connected to wifi, and I use it mostly for longer articles (uploaded via Instapaper) and ARCs, but I take Doug’s point.  The other day I was reading an ARC and wondered about one of the facts mentioned – I’m being a little vague because 1. it was an Alex book and 2. I honestly don’t remember exactly what it was I was wondering – so I picked up my iPhone and looked up… whatever it was. 30 minutes later, I’d found my answer, checked my email and looked at Twitter.  30 minutes later.

Which is, of course, both the blessing and curse of having one of those fancy ereaders that allow you to quickly go online: the rabbit hole and the added distractions.  It’s one of the things that several of my star reading students prefer about print, that lack of distraction and the ability to focus on the book and world it’s creating. But if we’re being honest, the problem isn’t the device (or lack thereof) it’s more about willpower.  Is your phone one of those always on, always notifying ones?  Do you have a tablet right next to you?  In the early days of ereaders, we didn’t have those additional tools and unless your laptop or desktop was always on, going online immediately was difficult.  Today? Those 30 minutes I “lost” could easily become an hour… two hours… and then where was I in the book again?  What exactly was going on?

My resolution for 2018 is to be less easily distracted from my reading.  Who knows how much more I could read?!

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Minor Musings

A holiday gift of sorts from me to you: linky goodness from the past few months.  Enjoy!

Books, Reading, etc.

• I so want to try this at work!  BPL now has personalized RA via email.
• Ever wonder what is required reading in another country? Wonder no more.
• They’ve got him, babe: The Sonny Bono Memorial Archive Collection of post-1923 books.
• How to teach [previously] spoon-fed students to really read. Important for anyone teaching incoming students.
• Tis the season to spend gift cards.  But also, maybe, add this extension to find books at your local library?

School Life

• How to teach your students (or children) to spot fake news. And remember, you may be as much to blame for it as social media is! (ps – teens really are worried about privacy)
• Ask your teachers: can algorithms be biased?  The ACLU thinks so. You can also check out the Data Harm Record.
• A Must Read: Framing failure as a necessary educational experience.
• So cool: PBS has archived The Newshour (and all previous iterations)
• An incredibly powerful site, the virtual Victims of Communism Memorial (think Stalin and the Ukraine famine)  should be part of your curated website lists.

Tech Stuff

• While some of the tools that students in this Harvard course use to stay organized are course-specific, some intrigue me and might work for my team.  Which? Asana, Vizia, Quip,  Slido and VideoNot.Es,
• Read Kris Shaffer’s two-part series on digital minimism (and how to delete your old tweets).  I’ll be thinking about this a lot over the next few weeks.
• Speaking of Twitter, here’s a tool that can help you find that tweet you know someone sent, but forget when (or they tweet so much you’ll never find it again without help!)
• Are you a GAFE school?  Worried about privacy?  Try these platforms to take back some of yours.

Miscellany

• FB admits that spending time on social media is bad for you.  Whoda thunk?
• Backlash against Design Thinking.

The Reader’s Advisory I Hate

The other day, a student came in asking for a new book to read.  She’d read a book and enjoyed it, so did we have any other books like it?

Well… yes… probably.  What was it about the book she liked?  There were several things going on in the book, and any of them might have been what appealed.  The last thing you want to do, when recommending a next book, is to assume that the thing that appealed to you about a multi-layered book is what appealed to the reader about the first book.  In this case, I got the infamous preteen shrug coupled with “I dunno…. everything I guess.” Ooookay.  Did you like this aspect?  That theme? The writing style? Which character?  “I dunno…”  Eventually, we found a book that she seemed happy with, although I couldn’t tell you whether there’s anything there that relates at all to the first book.

Now, that’s ok as long as she enjoys the second book.  As long as there’s something for her to connect to, enjoy and keep her reading, it doesn’t matter if there is or is not a connection to the previous book.  I do a lot of genre switching, a lot of reading that doesn’t feel connected except by one thing: is the writing good (a purely objective thing)?  do I buy the world and premise that the writer has created?  And those are totally objective criteria.

But wow, do I hate not being given more direction from readers as to what they liked, so I can recommend books that will continue to appeal to them!  The last thing I – or anyone doing Reader’s Advisory – want is for them to stop asking.

Minor Musings

Doug has a wonderful post entitled Just another shill for educational companies? that I encourage everyone to read. Here’s my policy: all ideas in any of my posts, from these Minor Musings to other, more detailed commentary, are mine – possibly inspired by others but not paid for or encouraged by a company.  One of these days I’ll go back and do a round-up of what’s worked and what hasn’t (and what sounded good at the time but now… not so much).  The results will probably surprise me, possibly surprise you.  But they won’t be “paid for”, I promise.

Books, Reading, etc.

• Not quite about books, but reading academic work – this Academic Phrasebook is a great thing to share with students and teachers.  And then ask, are [they] ready for college?

Tech Stuff

• David’s flow chart for research idea needs to be shared with my teachers before we start seriously thinking about Research Season planning.
• In my never-ending quest to find a great system to share links and projects with my staff, I’ll be exploring Dropmark (inspiration) and  Asana (inspiration).  Stay tuned.  Some of you may also think about the Everything Notebook.

Miscellany

• As we start to think about building a new space and how to work with the space we have, it’s always timely to remember the Five Laws of Librarianship and working with our faculty and administration to understand what our mission is.

Minor Musings

In December I bought myself a new laptop, and this summer I finally cleared out my old files and programs. Yes, I procrastinate. A lot. Anyway, prior to using Feedbin, I used RSS Owl (which is great, but lives on a machine not in the cloud). Some of these links have been stored there for, well… here they are anyway. Along with some new ones just because.

Books, Reading, etc.

• Summer’s over Time to start planning next summer’s travel. Perhaps the Lake District? Or any of the trips you can find on BookTrails?

School Life

• The Design Thinking train may be starting to leave the station (not everything needs to be DT-oriented) but if you’re curious, here’s a way to learn more.
• Nancy ponders the idea that If Teaching is Relational, How Does That Inform Online Teaching? And, along the lines of personal relationships, as we move into the school year, re-reading Katie’s thoughts about the Emma Personal Librarian Program makes sense.
• More on plagiarism (aka “something that got left out of my last post“): Why plagiarism is not necessarily deceitful or deserving of censure. And some comments on teaching copyright to students (they go hand-in-hand, right?)

Tech Stuff

• So cool: text “Send me [keyword, color or emoji]” to 572-51 and the SFMOMA will send you back a piece of art (I did this early one morning).
• I’m always in favor of bringing art to everyone, and apparently the Met’s Open Access experiment is working!
• If only I could use my own pens, I’d grab a Rhodia Bamboo Smart Folio.

Miscellany

• As AY18 begins, this reflection / confession from Joyce in 2016 is on my mind.
• Doug has thoughts on social media and the intersection between personal, professional and political. Your thoughts?

The Art of Not Caring

Many years ago as a newly minted school librarian I had the incredibly great fortune to work with and learn from an English teacher who’d been working in schools longer than I, a sort of informal mentor. The school we were at, Professional Children’s School, is a bit of a weird place, having been established over 100 years ago to provide an academic education for children already working in the arts (founding myth). It’s frequently confused with what was once Performing Arts and is now LaGuardia (aka “the Fame school”) or Professional Performing Arts, the NYC public version of PCS. Over the years, the school had become an amazingly diverse place, with a wide range of socioeconomics, religions, ethnicities, talents, learning styles and other things.

In order to make the academics work for students with professional lives, there is a program called Guided Study. Using email and other technologies, teachers and students can work together at a distance; when I was there, that was more difficult as email wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now, but I did institute after hours reference sessions using AIM. If you were out on Guided Study, you got a two-week extension, starting on your return to class, for your assignments. Sweet, right? And without going into the stereotypes of which students were more (or less) driven, we all knew than when Student A was on GS, they’d come back to school pretty much on schedule and caught up while Student B would take longer than the permitted extension.

And that’s where my friend’s sage advice came in: I can’t care more than they do. If she assigned an essay on the role of the landscape and snow in Ethan Frome, Student A would come back with a nearly perfect rough draft, while Student B would still need to purchase a copy and figure out how to open the book. Some teachers – at PCS, at every other school I’ve worked in or heard about – would expend a lot of energy working with Student B, cajoling and nudging and bending over to help them “succeed”. Not this teacher. She cared… enough. If the student was willing to do the work, make appointments or stop by to talk and get advice, ask questions, etc., she was 100% with that student and bent over backwards to help. But if that student didn’t care, didn’t put forth any effort and worked the system’s loopholes, she found other ways to occupy her mind and time.

Over the years I’ve had students who are seriously lost doing research. If they ask me for help, I’m happy to do what I can, sharing resources and shortcuts. But I’ve also had students who have – quite literally – asked “will this topic get me an easy A?” (actually, it’s the paper, the finished product that will get grade, but hey, I’m just the librarian so maybe I’m wrong!) or otherwise made it clear that they wanted me to do the research work for them because it wasn’t their priority. And remembering that I can’t care more than they do, that if this isn’t a priority for them, it can’t be a priority for me, helps.

As the school year starts (today is Day One of New Faculty Orientation), and new research projects are discussed and my department begins to work with new students and teachers, I have to remind myself not to care more than they do. It’s not just students, it’s teachers: it may be my goal to have every student graduate with great research, analysis and information/data literacy skills. But if it isn’t my teacher/colleagues goal, too, I can’t care more than they do.

Thinking About Plagiarism at #ALAAC17

Just before creating this blog post, I read A Guide for Resisting Edtech: the Case against Turnitin which poses some interesting moral and ethical questions for us to ponder.

Courtney Lewis presented at ALA’s Annual Conference on international students and plagiarism. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a few years, because how we think about as plagiarism – or, as we call it at Milton, academic integrity – is not always how our students, particularly those from other areas of the world, think about it. Thanks to other commitments, this was the only learning session I was able to attend but I’m so glad I did! You can view her slides here.

First thing she mentioned, our concept of plagiarism is actually fuzzy as it doesn’t take info account collaboration, editing, academic co-authorship, programming languages, oral preaching traditions, journalism (especially today, with “sources close to…” rather than named people), political speeches, peer editing in class, authorship in the age of usernames and avatars and mash-ups. In other words, the playing field is constantly evolving.

As we all know, institutions are made up of people. People are messy. And that’s what drives policy. We need to do better.

Think about not only about the above, but also these impediments to students doing completely original work: short assignment times, Pass/Fail classes, poor study habits, the text as authority not us, inadequate practice, lectures are often hypocritical (when does the teacher cite their sources? almost never. plus, see handouts that are missing citation information), English is the language of occupation and colonialism. So there’s that. And let’s not mention the number of library resources that are helpfully highlighted (even lightly in pencil) by previous researchers.

Plus, in most Asian countries, social hierarchy by age is important, so it helps to know who is older and can help younger students understand all kinds of social and academic issues. It’s not just social, but in age is important in other ways: old is revered and seminal while new is less valuable. In former Soviet countries, corruption (and plagiarism could be considered a form of corruption, as is academic theft) is a huge problem and one people learn about early on. Faculty must be taught about social and cultural differences, which lead to an understanding of a way forward.

Here’s an idea, one that would take more time than teachers may want to allot to an assignment but… as students to summarize an article in 1-3 sentences. Then create a paragraph from those sentences. Then a paragraph with quotes. Then share it with classmates and watch them learn from each other what the critical information in the article is. Guaranteed: no two students will have the same quotes or interpretation.

The next level up: #ACRLNEC17

Working in an independent school, particularly one usually considered an “elite college preparatory” school means extra pressure to be aware of what my students will be expected to do and know in their next educational institution. It makes sense to spend the day at the ACRLNEC conference because many of the colleges and universities represented will be where my students end up next.

Keynote: Bringing Down the Empire: Remaking Our Work, Our Libraries, Our Selves

What is the Empire in our world? The idea that libraries no longer matter. Now, how do we fight it?

• Remake Our Work
  • as users change, we have to change, adapt and educate
  • is higher education worth it? or is training (internships, apprenticeships, etc.) better? there’s been a huge change since the 50s, with the current expectation being “of course you’ll go to college” – however, more hands-on, critical thinking tools are needed
  • digital literacy is important: faculty are finally embracing this and the role of librarians in teaching these skills. NOTE: First Year students need research skills and are coming with subpar skills and understandings.
  • the University of Oklahoma has a virtual reality lab – think about using VR as a tool for teaching language, archaeology, history, etc.
• Remake Our Libraries
  • with all these changes, what you’re doing with your buildings: we are not just print warehouses, so we need to become an exciting destination.
  • think about this problem/conundrum and the pace of change because what works today probably won’t work in a few years – flexibility is critical
  • one idea: use BrightSpot to rethink space; another idea: create rooms for students to Skype/FaceTime with family, friends, potential employers (or colleges)
• Remake Our Selves
  • managing is a team sport – we need to support training and opportunity to use new skills later (in other words, don’t train then stuff the skill in a drawer)
  • the 23Things idea (BYU turned it into a contest!)

So: what is a librarian? And what is our role in the academic institution of the 21st Century?

The next two sessions were interesting, but one was (again, as at NEAISL) on archives/digital initiatives and the other was not relevant, so we’ll skip those.

New Model for Library Orientation

We don’t really have a library orientation, but that’s something I’d like to try to create. My college library orientation was four days of one hour instruction in a lecture hall, followed by at “quiz” that took several hours (albeit made easier by all the others doing the same quiz and marking answers or sharing). Did I learn anything? Not really, but I’d been using that library for a few years thanks to my father’s being on faculty there and because my high school library used Library of Congress and was, like my employer, an elite college preparatory school. But… we have students coming to us from a variety of backgrounds and levels of preparation, and while the school can test for math and language skills they have no test for research or literacy skills for incoming students. An orientation might help them feel comfortable in the space, with us as learning partners, and with the resources inside.

• Step One: get away from library jargon, passivity and lack of real need connection
  • the early days at school are overwhelming, and the library shouldn’t contribute to that stress
  • recognize that the library and resources won’t/can’t/shouldn’t compete with their first stop for information (Google and Wikipedia, duh)
• Step Two: find a model that works for your institution
  • the presenters work at the UVM Medical School library, so they use the clinical care model that students will be using in their every day classes – it’s a format they’re familiar with, so it makes sense and it’s “special stuff” in their lives
  • what does this look like?
    • Need (what information is sought)
    • History of Need
    • Past Information History – social, previous education, family
    • Diagnosis of Needs
    • Review of Information Systems
• Step Three: ask for feedback from students and teachers
  • does this make sense?
  • does it help?
  • will you remember it?

Other models? The Scientific Method, Literature Review, Annotated Bibliography, Pathfinder/LibGuide, SWOT, Design Thinking.

Other ideas? Consider using Instagram or other social media to post a Research Question of the Week or Information Resource of the Week.

#NEISL17 Reflections

I love the NEAISL conference. I love it even more when I’m not hosting, as I did in 2015 and 2016. For those who don’t know, it’s a 40-year-old conference that brings together independent school librarians in New England (and a few from NY). We meet and talk and learn together for one day and then disappear back to our respective schools until the next year. For some, it’s the only professional development during the year, so organizers take it seriously. This past year we went to Cheshire Academy.

Embedded Librarianship (panel discussion)

This is an idea I’ve been excited about for a few years now and sadly, because of changing jobs and changing staff, haven’t been able to really get into before but this year one of my goals is to create an action plan with the department and start to begin the work over AY18 and AY19. So here’s what we need to start thinking about as we move forward:

• ask questions of the department heads – what skills do you teach? how does the library fit in? (move from support to teaching)
• reinforce what’s being taught in classes, using ACRL/ISTE/AASL standards to support our involvement
• create a booking system for reference opportunities on the website, one that asks students to do some thinking rather than just posing a question
• work with a local academic library on a Day of Research
• try to get faculty to allow us to grade rough drafts for process, and be as tough as a college teacher would (it’s eye opening for teachers and students to see what’s really required) – one idea is to put all notes and bib in NoodleTools, but require a printed final draft so you can see the changes between the rough and final version

The big takeaway: teacher buy-in is critical, so we need to form a focus group with friendly – and unfriendly teachers!

Critical Media Literacy (Allison Butler)

What is it? It’s continued inquiry into the “behind the scenes” of ownership, production, audience and distribution of media – getting the broader picture because media does not occur in a vacuum.

One idea? Ask students to pull apart a fashion magazine to separate content from ads. Difficult, right? Thing is, we’re still consuming a lot of traditional media, just not in traditional ways: the audience is no longer well-known, so risk-taking is difficult (think: could Archie Bunker work today? maybe. audiences either were in on the joke or saw him as one of them, which might be the case again today).

It’s equally critical to look at what’s not there, which stories aren’t being told and why. What gets prioritized? who does that prioritization? Think: what’s on Fox vs MSNBC vs NPR vs Breitbart. Part of critical medial literacy is to critique power, not to be partisan.

Critical Media Literacy (panel discussion)

• We need to expand spaces for students to interact with the library
• Create “Calling BS” posters for all subjects, all topics (get all departments involved) – why stats, data, news, etc. are “BS”
• You probably will, at some point, retweet fake news – it’s ok. Learn from that failure how to better check sources and biases.
• Think about how we ask questions: if I can’t find get the information, is that my fault or is there deliberate obfuscation going on?

Critical media literacy isn’t bashing, it’s questioning.

The last panel was on Archives, which I’m sitting on for a while. That’s next summer’s Big Project, my third school archives reorganization. One of these years, I’ll get it right.

Can’t wait to learn with these people next year.

Minor Musings

Summer is a great time to binge watch while digitally organizing/reorganizing/decluttering, isn’t it? So here’s what I’ve bookmarked and saved over the past few months.

Books, Reading, etc.

• B&N’s Teen Readers blog has a great list of their favorite summer reads and NYPL has a list of great YA reads (runs to make sure we have them on our shelves). Meanwhile, Ernie thinks about the white canon our students are asked to read in school.
• From NYPL: a great reading challenge. While I can’t comment on my current reading for the Alex Awards, I can say I’m meeting this challenge! You?
• We’ve been weeding the collection and getting great print and digital replacements. Here are more thoughts on the process from another weeder.

School Life

• Thinking this summer about The Power of Nonneutral Librarianship and my library’s role in our school’s life.
• Asking students to interact with Wikipedia may lead to greater understanding of how it works. Here’s one assignment I’d love to try.
• What skills do students need in the 21st century? IMVHO, they’ve always needed most of these skills, it’s just the tools and pedagogy that changed.

Tech Stuff

• I’ve been a huge RSS user for years and, since the demise of Google Reader, I’ve been using Feedbin (try it!). Here’s how to find/create an RSS feed for any site.
• The more I think about privacy, the more I know that you have to unsubscribe carefully. Here’s one way to protect yourself. And perhaps think about online shopping and privacy.
• The 23Things movement hasn’t slowed. Might be something to update and try again. Use Twitter? Try TwitLamp to see your timeline.

Miscellany

• I’ve been doing a mixture of a bullet journal/general notebook for the past few years, starting a new book every July 1. This post on To Do Lists is making me think about how I’m doing this, both digitally and in print.
• Apropos of the above, the idea of blocking off an entire Friday afternoon to plan makes me miss my days back in the corporate world.