Thing 2 -- Responding to learning about Library 2.0

I’ve embarked on this journey of learning about “Library 2.0” via the 23 Things program for a number of reasons.

The Background
I am currently the sole librarian (at 72% time) at a private K to 8 school. Our library is unique insofar it also contains a rather substantial specialized adult collection that is used by our religious community as well as parents and teachers at our school. I am not, by training, a librarian—I have a doctorate in English. The school recently remodeled the library and computer lab to create a “Knowledge Center.” Since the Technology Specialist and I like to work together and to collaborate, the change is welcomed. As part of the process, the whole Knowledge Center is wireless-capable. Our goal as teachers is to make using technology a comfortable, yet safe way to find information while also making clear when books and other reference material might be more appropriate. I also hope to find ways to make our materials (and our skills at finding materials) available to the larger community. As of yet, our catalogue is not on-line.

Goals
I want to become more comfortable with various aspects of how various types of information technology works so that I can be more knowledgeable when dealing with students and their families. Often, students THINK they understand something, when in fact they only have a cursory knowledge. My colleague and I have surveyed students in the upper grades and have discovered that while they are comfortable using GOOGLE, they have no idea how to focus searches, how to evaluate sites, or how to navigate the sites once they find them. Yet students are far more fearless than most of my coworkers in trying the various options that technology offers. Young students are enjoying Club Penguin and Webkins, older students have Facebook accounts and IM, and a few have even experimented with web cams and their own websites. If I don’t become more familiar with the technology my students already use, I run the risk of not truly being able to help them when they need help.

I would like to be able to create a virtual community for our parents and teachers. Families and teachers often have such busy schedules that it is difficult to connect in thoughtful and meaningful ways. If we embrace the technologies that make these virtual connections possible, we might be able to strengthen our community at large.

I hope to continue learning about the ins and outs of research and possibility on the Internet. While I worked on my dissertation (back in the dark ages of the early 1990s), the Internet proved invaluable for me, since my topic was somewhat obscure. I gained a fair amount of confidence in navigating the materials that were then available. Clearly, if I were embarking on the same projects now, I would find vastly more information available. The trick is to keep aware of how to tell the useful from the junk.

Comments on Byberg’s article
Some of the material in this article seems more relevant to public libraries. Yet the uniqueness of my school library also being a community resource makes some of the observations relevant for me as well. I think the very nature of a school library makes it a place of collaboration and interaction. Because the Technology Specialist and I have team-taught the older students, the students have come to see technology and libraries as belonging together. Perhaps in the end, that is the comfortable goal. Now we just have to convince everyone else.